Introduction

What we know as the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) has its origins spanning over 150 years, making it the oldest political party in Germany, and one of the oldest democratic parties in the world. The SPD began as a Socialist party adhering closely to the theories of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels—pushing for Socialism through revolution—, but transformed into a party that, today, wouldn’t even be considered Social-Democratic, and is much closer to centrism.

Although the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands is nothing to look up to or admire today, it’s history is indissolubly tied up in the history of the Socialist movement in Germany, and more importantly, the world. A movement that gave us some of the greatest theoreticians and revolutionary figures—Rosa Luxemburg, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Karl Liebknecht, August Bebel, and others—needs to be studied and remembered, for it gives us the valuable lesson of what allowing concessions and reform to creep into our midst can do to a revolutionary movement. That is precisely what I set out to do in this article of Simplifying Socialism. 

The Formation of the Social-Democratic Movement in Germany

Social Democracy and 1848

One thing to make clear: what we know now as Social-Democracy is not what it meant back during the formation of the early movements; Social-Democracy was what we would now refer to as Marxist Socialism, i.e., Scientific Socialism. It’s not difficult to see why the Social-Democratic movement took off in Germany, which at this time was a confederation of Germanic states. The two most well known proponents of Socialist theory, and the founders of Scientific Socialism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were from Germany, and, although they’d been in exile in London since 1849, remained close in relation and communication with many of the early German Social-Democrats.

The Communist Manifesto, written by Marx and Engels, was published in 1848. Coincidentally, 1848 is sometimes known as the “year of the revolution” because of the mass wave of uprisings that took place across Europe. These revolutions were mostly led by the middle-classes, and were majority liberal in nature with most places advocating for simple democratic reforms. However, the “radical” nature of the 1848 uprisings paved the way for significant social change. It is here that we have the very beginnings of Socialism and the Social-Democratic movement in Germany.

Germany, really an alliance of Germanic speaking states and not one unified German state, quickly became the second most industrialized area in the world behind England, this industrialization caused a great expansion of movements and groups advocating for the rights of workers. Owing to the lack of a unified state, Germany did not have a very strong bourgeoisie, nor did it a powerful liberal party such as there was in England, which made it a uniquely-situated state ripe for a vast movement of Social-Democracy.

Ferdinand Lassalle

The 1848 uprising in the confederation of Germanic states did not lead to any meaningful change for the people, as it was succinctly put down, but it did begin the idea of a unified German state—this would come of importance later on. One of the people who partook in the events of 1848 was Ferdinand Lassalle. Lassalle was an early Socialist, and one of the very first reformers of Marxism. Following his arrest in 1849, he became a political journalist and labor organizer in Berlin.

It was in Berlin that Lassalle began to make a name for himself as an amiable writer and powerful orator, so much so that he was asked to draft a program for a congress of German workers. Lassalle advocated for a peaceful movement of workers that protested by legal means for the replacement of the three-tiered Prussian voting system, under which the upper and middle class’s votes counted more than the lower class’s.

This would form the General German Workers’ Association (ADAV) in 1863, which is known as the earliest organized mass working-class party in history—it advocated for the advancement of the working class and the establishment of Socialism through electoral politics. The organ of the ADAV was Der Sozial-Demokrat (The Social Democrat). Lassalle was the first president of the ADAV where he was known for giving passionate speeches, but considered to be developing a cult of personality around him; he died in a duel in 1864. An up-and-coming writer and Socialist was briefly a member of the ADAV before splitting from the party due to its advocation for monarchist state-welfare rather than revolutionary Socialism, his name was Wilhelm Liebknecht.

Wilhelm Liebknecht

Wilhelm Liebknecht became involved in Socialism as a twenty-one year old while living in Switzerland—revolution had erupted in Paris in ‘48 and Liebknecht wanted to take part in it, but he arrived too late and subsequently repatriated to Germany where he took part in numerous insurrections. After his release from jail in 1849, he returned to Switzerland where he quickly began growing a name for himself in the emerging labor movement among workers. Fearful of his growing influence, the Austrian and Prussian governments had him expelled from Geneva. Liebknecht moved to England in 1849 where he lived for the next thirteen years.

During his time in London, Liebknecht joined the Communist League where he developed a close friendship with Marx and Engels that would last for the rest of their lives, which is special considering the majority of people that Marx and Engels associated with would cut ties later on, or vice-versa. He became a correspondent for a newspaper based in Augsburg, Germany called the Augsburg Gazette, which is how he made his living.

Liebknecht returned to Germany, in 1862, after the Prussian government granted him amnesty. Upon his return to Berlin, he began writing for a different newspaper, the North German Gazette, where he would frequently write about Socialism, and started growing his influence. He soon-after joined the General German Workers’ Association for a short-period. Around this time he became friends with August Bebel, of whom would become a lifelong close-collaborator. Liebknecht and Bebel worked well together because, like Marx and Engels, they complemented each other’s style. Liebknecht was a good writer, while Bebel was a good orator. This made them a dynamic duo that would soon become the main figures of the Social-Democratic movement.

They would go on to found the Saxon People’s Party in 1866, as a response to Prussia’s victory against Austria in the German War and the subsequent founding of the North German Confederation—the first official German state. The SPP was a coalition of positions including liberal, anti-Prussian bourgeois, and Socialist advocates. Liebknecht was elected to the North German Reichstag in 1867, where he advocated against the Lassallean theory of Socialism.

August Bebel

August Bebel grew up in an impoverished family. Owing to this, Bebel learned a trade, and, like many German workers at the time, became a journeyman traveling around for work. He was eventually able to settle in Leipzig, in 1860, where he began his long career in politics. Bebel had initially joined the Leipzig Workers’ Educational Association and would eventually become its chairman. His early views could not be described as Socialist, but Bebel was open-minded and would develop as he gained access to more reading material, and was exposed to the views of people like Liebknecht.

It was Liebknecht who became something of a mentor to the young Bebel and would help him develop his radical views. Bebel co-founded the SPP in 1866, and was elected to the North German Reichstag alongside Liebknecht in 1867. Bebel would go on to advocate against the idea of a “larger Germany”.

Bebel and Liebknecht would be the only two members of the North German parliament to speak out against issuing of war loans in 1870, and, as such, they would be sentenced to imprisonment for high treason. During his time imprisoned, Bebel was able to educate himself, which helped his progress in politics.

Social Democratic Workers’ Party

By 1869, Bebel and Liebknecht were more prepared to found a new political party that would more strictly adhere to the principles of Socialism. This party was called Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, Social Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany (SDAP). They founded the party in the city of Eisenach with a group of workers formerly associated with the Verband Deutscher Arbeitervereine, Assembly of German Worker Associations (VDAV), a large group of apolitical workers’ advocacy collections, who were prepared to begin political agitation—as such, the members of the SDAP would become known as the “Eisenachers”.

The SDAP would become involved in the International Workingmen’s Association, otherwise known as the First International of leftist groups, parties, and labor associations. The platform that they advocated for was a “free people’s state (freier Volkstaat)”. Their organ, Der Volkstaat (The People’s State), was edited by Liebknecht and became very popular with German workers from the period of 1869-1876.

The Lassallean ADAV was also quite popular among workers, and, although they were both advocating for their rights, competed with the SDAP for a similar base of support. At this time, liberal organizations were forming and also competing for support among workers. This meant that even though the Lassalleans were more moderate, and the Eisenachers were more radical, they had a common cause in competing against the liberal forces.

The Formation of the SAPD and the Gotha Program

The two groups had run-ins with each other, but formally met in the city of Gotha in 1875. By this time, the Prussians, under the leadership of Otto von Bismarck, had successfully unified Germany into the German Empire with Prussia being the dominant constituency in 1871. Bismarck became the Chancellor of the new Empire and served from 1871-1890. His rule was largely characterized by attempts to break the Social-Democratic movement through reactionary measures.

It was in Gotha that the two parties formed the Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands, Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany, SAPD. They drafted the party program, known as the Gotha Program, much to the satisfaction of the delegates attending the convention. However, Marx and Engels were not fans of the party program as is evidenced in Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program (1875), for they believed that the Eisenachers had conceded much too far to the moderate party line proposed by the Lassalleans.

The SAPD, a Party Based on Revision

The Early Years of the SAPD and the Anti-Socialist Laws

The SAPD continued advocating for workers through its moderate platform that had essentially abandoned revolution and had begun espousing Socialism through reform. Bismarck passed his Anti-Socialist Laws which effectively banned the SAPD and barred them from formally meeting and running campaigns in elections, outlawed trade unions, closed or suppressed over forty newspapers, and banned Social-Democratic emblems, so they began wearing red rosebuds which is how that became an official symbol of Social-Democracy worldwide.

The SAPD wasn’t able to run candidates the conventional way, but they were still allowed to be voted for as write-in candidates, and still won elections to the Reichstag where they were able to win small concessions for working people. They also weren’t allowed to continue their newspapers, but they still garnered influence among the working class, both in Germany and abroad, and as a result they had a solid support base that consistently grew through the duration of the Anti-Socialist Laws.

A New Name and New Program

Bebel and Liebknecht remained influential in the party for the rest of their lives, and, in 1889, they were both elected to the Reichstag. Another member, Eduard Bernstein, was beginning to make waves around this time for a different reason—he began challenging the theories of Marx and Engels, and advocating for serious revisions within the party to the point of improving upon capitalism and no longer advocating for the moderate Socialism that the party had adapted at that point.

The Anti-Socialist Laws were finally repealed in 1890. This allowed for the SAPD to establish itself as a formal political party once more. The years of the Anti-Socialist Laws, in the face of a moderate Social-Democratic movement, had taken effect on the members of the SAPD, and, as such, their new party program was to adhere closer with Marxism and reaffirm the stance of the replacement of capitalism.

Karl Kautsky, who had formed a friendship with Friedrich Engels until his death, was chosen, along with August Bebel & Eduard Bernstein, to draft the program of the new Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD), in 1890. Kautsky had gained influence in both the party and the movement in 1889 for being a leading theoretician in the Second International, which would greatly influence the global Socialist movement until the Imperialist War, World War I.

The Erfurt Program became the party platform of the SPD in 1891 after its congress at Erfurt. This new program was more “radical” than the Gotha Program, and had a definitively more Marxist view, but still failed to identify the necessity of revolution that Engels and Marx had theorized. Positive reforms such as universal suffrage, free education and medicine, and gender equality were all part of the Erfurt Program, which remained the SPD’s platform until 1921.

The Revisionist Controversy

The SPD saw continual growth in membership from the end of the nineteenth-century to the early twentieth-century. With growth came new thinkers like Rosa Luxemburg, who joined in 1898, and new ideas, like those being pushed by Bernstein. It was in 1898 that the SPD began to develop three distinct internal factions: the left-wing, led by Luxemburg and advocated for the need for international revolution to bring about Socialism and end class oppression, the center, led by Kautsky and Bebel which tried to strictly adhere to the Erfurt Program; pushed for Socialism through reform; and is closest to what we’d call the modern Social-Democrat, and the right-wing, led by Bernstein, which challenged Marxism heavily and began advocating for cooperation and consolidation with the bourgeoisie and reforms to capitalism and a very gradualist approach to “Socialism”, if you could even call it that. The center of the SPD was initially closer to the left-wing up until the onset of World War I.

Luxemburg continued gaining influence through her work domestically and abroad theorizing the mass strike, advocating for international revolution, and being firmly against imperialism & nationalism. In 1900, Karl Liebknecht, the son of SPD co-founder Wilhelm Liebknecht, joined the party on its left-wing and rose up the rank-and-file until he was considered a leader among the radicals.

The Split Over the Imperialist War

As previously stated, the left-wing was strictly against imperialism and aims seen as advancing the goals of imperialism. From 1907-1914, Luxemburg was teaching at the Social Democratic Party school in Berlin, it was here that she wrote Die Akkumulation des Kapitals, The Accumulation of Capital (1913). In it, she stated that imperialism was the result of capitalist expansion into underdeveloped areas.

In 1914, after the killing of Franz Ferdinand, the Reichstag, including the majority of SPD Deputies, voted in favor of the war and of issuing money for it. To the anti-militarist, anti-imperialist left-wing, this was too far and it caused them to begin taking action against the party.

The Spartacists, the KPD, and the Death of the German Revolution

Die Internationale and the Initial Efforts Against the War

Luxemburg, along with Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, Franz Mehring, and other former former SPD left-wingers, formed Die Internationale, The International, in August 1914. The group wrote and handed out, now illegal, anti-war pamphlets that were signed with the pseudonym Spartacus, after the famous gladiator whom led a slave uprising against the Roman Republic.

This would become the Spartacus Group on January 1, 1916 after adopting Luxemburg’s Leitsätze über die Aufgaben der internationalen Sozialdemokratie, Guiding Principles on the Tasks of International Social Democracy, as its official program. During the time of Die Internationale, they were still members of the SPD. Liebknecht would be expelled from the party in January 1916, while 18 other outspoken opponents of the war were expelled in March 1916.

They also rejected the SPD’s support of the war and urged German labor unions to declare an anti-war general strike in 1916 to no avail. Seeing as Luxemburg and Liebknecht were organizing around the country for anti-war measures to be taken, the government called for them to be prosecuted for high treason—they would be sentenced in August 1916 and would remain in prison until they were granted amnesty in October 1918.

In April 1917, Kautsky, Hugo Haase, and Bernstein split from the SPD and founded the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). The Spartacus League, otherwise known as the Spartacus Group, would join the USPD and form the radical wing, which was a minority.

The November Revolution

In November 1918, nearing the end of the Imperialist World War I, a naval mutiny marked the beginning of a statewide uprising of soldiers and workers. They formed workers’ and soldiers’ councils that were similar to the Soviets, but did not adhere to a single party, nor did they foreshadow a successful German Socialist revolution like they did in Russia.

Six days after the Kiel Mutiny, on November 9, the German Republic, also known as Weimar Germany, or the Weimar Republic, was proclaimed by both the SPD, and Karl Liebknecht—who proclaimed the Free Socialist Republic of Germany, but it was not to be.

The provisional Reich government under the moderate Social Democrat Friedrich Ebert, really a bourgeois collaborator, came to power and Weimar Germany was established. Ebert immediately began taking measures to destroy any potential Socialist revolution by forming the Ebert-Groener Pact with Wilhelm Groener, a staunch anti-Socialist and the Quartermaster of the Supreme Army Command, in which Groener assured loyalty to the new government in exchange for the ability to take swift action against any leftist uprisings.

The Spartacus League

On November 11, 1918, the Spartacus Group would become the Spartacus League to represent a more organized and, now, national league of Socialists. They immediately began calling for the creation of a Soviet Republic in Germany. The organ of the Spartacus League was the daily newspaper Die Rote Fahne, The Red Flag.

The Reich Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils met in December 1918. The Spartacus League had ten out of 489 delegates. The majority voted hold elections in January 1919 for a constituent National Assembly to become the formal government of Weimar Germany.

The League saw this as an active step of counterrevolution and it drove them to form their own party away from the USPD. The final straw was when Ebert tried to disband the Volksmarinedivision, the People’s Navy Division, who were openly Socialist and were the soldiers who started the Kiel Munity and subsequent November Revolution. The units of the People’s Navy Division and those loyal to Ebert and the provisional government clashed in Berlin resulting in 67 deaths.

The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Spartacist Uprising

In response to the actions of Ebert, the Spartacus League held a congress that began on December 29, 1918. Along with the members of the League, there were the Bremen radicals, the International Communists of Germany (IKD), and the notable Polish revolutionary Karl Radek. It was Radek who convinced the congress that unifying was a necessity.

On December 31, 1918, the delegates voted to unite and formed the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Communist Party of Germany (KPD). Liebknecht and Luxemburg had been influential in getting the KPD to vote for parliamentary participation in the upcoming election—unfortunately, they would not live to see it.

Less than a week later on January 5, 1919, mass demonstrations broke out in Berlin to protest the dismissal of the chief of police. 100,000 people participated from the 5-12 of January. The demonstrators would take over the printing plants of Social Democratic newspapers, publishing houses, and a telegraph office.

The USPD and KPD met on January 5 to decide on how to proceed. They formed a Revolutionary Committee of over 50 members and three chairmen, of which Liebknecht was one, that voted in favor of overthrowing the government and seizing state power.

On January 6, 1919, the Revolutionary Committee called for the workers of Berlin to proceed in a general strike on January 7 and overthrow the government. 500,000 people joined in on the demonstrations prepared to disarm the soldiers and take control of the government.

The committee could not agree on how to proceed with taking control. Liebknecht and the KPD supported an armed insurrection, a civil war to take over the government by force, while the moderates of the USPD wanted to negotiate with Ebert. They failed to direct the workers on what to do, thus resulting in them returning home in the evenings of January 5 and 6.

The committee began negotiations on January 6, but by January 7 it was clear that they would not be able to agree. The Council of People’s Deputies, under Ebert, demanded the evacuation of occupied buildings, while the Revolutionary Committee demanded that Eichhorn, the chief of police that had been removed, be reinstated.

That same day, Ebert gave control of soldiers around Berlin to Gustav Noske. These Freikorps units began expanding in number and mustering forces around Berlin. On January 8, the government called for civilians to fight violently against the insurgents. It was a day later on January 9, that the Revolutionary Committee demanded a fight against the government.

Fighting began on January 10, when the Freikorps Reinhard Brigade attacked the Spartacist headquarters. A day later on January 11, Noske ordered troops to attack the occupiers of the Vorwärts newspaper building. The Potsdam Freikorps took the building using machine guns, artillery, and flamethrowers. By January 12, numerous other occupied buildings were taken, and by the 13th, the city was occupied by numerous Freikorps units.

The Brutal Killings of Luxemburg & Liebknecht and the Death of the German Revolution

Immediately after the uprising was crushed, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and other Spartacist leaders went into hiding. Right-wing and Ebert-loyal forces were calling for their heads and their lives were in danger. Liebknecht and Luxemburg were found on the evening of January 15, hiding in a friends apartment in Wilmersdorf (southwest Berlin). They were taken prisoner by the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division under the command of Waldemar Pabst, and his Lieutenant Horst von Pflugk-Harttung. They were subsequently interrogated and tortured for several hours.

The night of January 15, 1919, Luxemburg was led out of the hotel were they were being tortured. On the way from the hotel entrance to the car, she was hit with the butt of a rifle by Private Otto Runge. Unconscious, she was forced into a car that would stop by Berlin’s Landwehr Canal, where she was shot in the temple by Lieutenant Hermann Souchon. First Lieutenant Kurt Vogel threw her body into the canal where it would not be found until May 31, 1919.

Shortly after they had taken Luxemburg, they returned to the hotel and proceeded to take a semi-unconscious Liebknecht, again hit by the butt of Otto Runge’s rifle, by car to the Berlin Tiergarten, a large park near the city center, where he was forced out of the car and shot in the back; made to look as he was running away attempting to escape. His body was dropped off at a police station in Berlin where it was said to be the corpse of an unknown man.

A criminal trial took place from May 8 to May 14, 1919. Wilhelm Pieck, the future leader of East Germany, testified that he saw an officer, addressed as captain, walking around handing out cigarettes and stating that “the gang must not leave the Eden Hotel alive!” Runge received two years in prison, Vogel 28 months, Plufgk-Harttung was acquitted, and Waldemar Pabst was not charged. In 1929, ten years after the trial, the judge, Paul Jorns, was dismissed for bias.

In 1934, the Nazis gave Runge compensation using taxpayer money. In January, 1935, the Nazis leveled the graves of Luxemburg and Liebknecht. The right-winger Eduard Stadtler, and founder of the Anti-Bolshevik League, stated in his memoirs in 1935 that he had ordered the killings from Pabst, and that Pabst had indicated that he had been in contact with Noske before and after the murders.

Pabst stated in a 1962 interview that Noske permitted the murders and proceeded to cover up the lack of prosecutions. Noske always denied cooperation and knowledge of the murders. Otto Kranzbuhler, the lawyer for Hermann Souchon, the man who shot Luxemburg, stated that Pabst had confirmed to him that he’d had a telephone conversation with Noske before the killings. Historians and biographers generally believe that both Pabst and Noske had premeditated the murders and had spoken with each other before they were carried out.

It was with the bullets that brutally killed Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht that the Socialist revolution in Germany officially died. Reactionary forces under Ebert and later under Hitler would assume power for the next twenty-five years. Their murders marked a beginning in paramilitary force in Germany and the rise of fascism.

Conclusion

Before they became martyrs for revolutionary Socialism, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were fighters who throughout their lives fought against opportunism, revisionism, and reactionism. They influenced many in Germany and many more beyond. They always advocated for the proletariat, for the working class, and for all toiling and exploited masses of the world. It would be a disaster to not look back and remember them for what they were, not how they died.

As we can see plainly, the SPD was never really a truly Socialist party, but it did advocate and advance the cause of the working class before it allowed revisionism to fester and grow a nucleus in its midst. We view the SPD and the Social-Democracy movement in Germany as one that failed the people it claimed to represent. It was the inaction of the USPD that caused the inaction of the workers during the Spartacist Uprising. It was the failure of Social-Democracy that led to the failure of a workers’ revolution.

What this teaches us is that we must be strict in our party organization, we must be firm in standing against any revisionism whether it be through reformist, opportunistic, or, forbid, reactionist measures. This is an incredibly valuable lesson that we mustn’t soon forget otherwise our revolution will be doomed to fail before it even begins, as was the case for the proletariat in Germany!