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...AND DIE IN ONE DAY

LIBKNECHT CARL LUXEMBOURG ROSE

Karl Liebknecht is the founder of the German Communist Party. He called for the overthrow of the government that was waging war. Together with Rosa Luxembourg, he founded the newspaper Rote Fahne. Brutally killed.

Rosa Luxembourg is one of the leaders of the Polish Social Democracy, a leftist radical trend in the German Social Democracy and the 2nd International. One of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany. She opposed militarism. Brutally killed.

"They lived happily ever after and died on the same day" - this is how the writer Alexander Grin imagined the ideal of family happiness. His words can be attributed to one of the most famous couples of the XX century - Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg. However, it is unlikely that the romantic Green would consider a double death at the hands of murderers an acceptable plot for any of his creations ... As well as a marriage based on revolutionary struggle - and after all, Karl and Rosa were not just spouses, but also comrades-in-arms, “ardently devoted to the cause of the revolution and to the best forces of the German proletariat.

Karl Liebknecht and Red Rose went through prison, were in an illegal position for a long time - and became leaders of the left wing of the German Social Democracy, founded the Communist Party of Germany. They led the German Revolution on November 9, 1918 - and soon the democratic government announced a bounty of 100,000 marks on their heads. On January 15, 1919, Karl and Rosa were captured and shot, and the future head of Nazi intelligence, Canaris, led the killers. Rosa's corpse was thrown into a canal and was fished out only a month later. In the Soviet Union, factories, streets, ships were named after her; At the same time, her works were not published, and "Luxembourgianism" was declared one of the party heresies. Only in 1923 did the first translations of the works of the revolutionary into Russian appear.

Here is how Leon Trotsky spoke about Liebknecht and Luxembourg:

“... These two wrestlers, so different in nature and so close at the same time, complemented each other, marched steadily towards a common goal, found death at the same time and entered history together. Karl Liebknecht was the epitome of a relentless revolutionary. Around his name were created. countless legends. In his personal life, Karl Liebknecht was the epitome of kindness, simplicity and brotherhood. He was a charming man, attentive and sympathetic. We can say that his character was characterized by an almost feminine softness, and along with it he was distinguished by an exceptional temper of the revolutionary will, the ability to fight in the name of what he considered the truth, to the last drop of blood.

Rosa Luxembourg's name is less known. But this was no less a figure than Karl Liebknecht. Small in stature, fragile, sickly, with noble features, with beautiful eyes that radiated intelligence, she struck with the courage of her thought. She had many enemies! By the power of her logic, by the power of her sarcasm, she silenced her most sworn opponents. With the power of theoretical thought, the ability to generalize, Rosa Luxemburg surpassed not only her opponents, but also her comrades-in-arms by a whole head. This was a brilliant woman. Her style - tense, precise, sparkling, merciless - has been and will forever remain a faithful mirror of her thought.

Liebknecht was not a theoretician. He was a man of direct action. An impulsive, passionate nature, he possessed exceptional political intuition, a sense of the masses and the situation, and, finally, the incomparable courage of a revolutionary initiative. Analysis of the domestic and international situation. one could and should have waited, above all, from Rosa Luxembourg. A call to immediate action. would proceed to an armed uprising. from Liebknecht.

Karl Liebknecht could not but become a socialist - he did not have the slightest chance to avoid the political path. Karl's father, Wilhelm Liebknecht, was the most famous political figure in Germany, a socialist. In 1848, he was imprisoned for his views, from where he escaped a year later and illegally crossed the border. Then he became close to K. Marx and, returning to Germany in 1862, engaged in active propaganda of Marxism, became one of the founders of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and even a member of the Reichstag. In 1872, Wilhelm Liebknecht was again convicted on charges of high treason, and after his release from prison he continued his political activities.

In 1871, a son was born to Wilhelm, who received the name in honor of Karl Marx. It is “Dr. Karl Marx from London, Friedrich Engels, a rentier in London” who are listed in the parish register as the “grandparents” of the newborn. Marx really became the spiritual father of Liebknecht Jr., whose life path was already determined from the cradle. Karl Liebknecht in many ways repeated the fate of his father - he was in prison, accused of treason, led the party.

Carl studied at the universities of Leipzig and Berlin, received a law degree and became a lawyer. At the age of 29, he joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and in 1904 he defended in court the interests of Russian and German Social Democrats, who were accused of illegally importing banned party literature into the country. In his judicial speech, which became his first political speech, Karl denounced the repressive policies of Germany and Russia against the revolutionaries. In the future, he consistently opposed the idea of ​​gradual reforms put forward by the right-wing social democrats, paying great attention to anti-war agitation, political work with youth and the promotion of revolutionary ideology.

True to his views, Liebknecht enthusiastically embraced the Russian Revolution of 1905-07. and called on the German proletariat to follow the example of the Russian workers. Together with R. Luxembourg, he headed the left trend of the German Social Democracy, which took shape precisely in these years.

K. Liebknecht became one of the founders of the Socialist Youth International (1907) and headed it until 1910. In 1907, the first international conference of youth socialist organizations was held, where K. Liebknecht made a report on the fight against militarism, for which he was sentenced to prison conclusion. Nevertheless, in 1908 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies, and in 1912 - to the German Reichstag. And even there, Liebknecht continued to pursue an anti-war policy, openly accusing the owners of the monopolies, headed by Krupp, of fomenting war.

The culmination of Liebknecht's pre-war political activity was the parliamentary vote on granting war credits to Germany. The II International (an international association of workers' parties founded in 1889) on June 30, 1914 adopted a resolution on strengthening anti-war activities. The German Social Democratic Party, one of the main forces of the Second International, in an appeal published on July 25, 1914, called on the workers to protest against militarism. However, on July 31, the day martial law was declared and hostilities actually began, the party committee called on the workers to "wait patiently until the end," and the Social Democratic faction of the Reichstag decided to "vote for the loans demanded by the government."

On August 4, Liebknecht, being a member of the Social Democratic faction and subject to party discipline, voted for war credits against his principles. However, on December 2, during the second vote, he became the only member of the Reichstag to vote against this bill.

AT written statement, explaining the reason for such an act, Liebknecht called the war an aggressive one and recalled the famous slogan of his father, the leader of the German Social Democracy: "No parliamentary compromises!" Karl accused his party members of betraying the interests of the proletariat, because the Second International decided to pursue an anti-war policy. Liebknecht's statement was distributed in the form of an illegal leaflet entitled "The main enemy in one's own country!".

John Reed later wrote of the December events as follows:

“Against Kaiser Germany with its disciplined industry, iron armies and feudal aristocracy, against the carefully implanted jingoism, against the cowardice and indecision of the leaders popular in the country -. this man, who was in the Reichstag the only representative of the most disadvantaged, the most oppressed, the most disenfranchised part of the population, spoke. Liebknecht was in full view of everyone. - and opposed the official power of the most highly organized power on earth. The German Social Democrats of the majority, the Kaiser socialists, heard him and expelled Liebknecht from their ranks. But the masses of the German people, the German soldiers in the trenches, the German workers in military factories, the landless peasants of Saxony, also heard it. His voice was heard on the other side of the front; and French soldiers. from the bottom of their hearts they said - "Liebknecht is the most courageous person on earth."

Karl Liebknecht was persecuted, treated as a "coward" and "traitor to the fatherland", arrested twice and finally in 1915 sent to the front as a private of a workers' battalion. In 1916, Liebknecht was expelled from the Social Democratic faction of the Reichstag, and he took part in the creation of the Spartak group. In the same year, during a May Day demonstration, he called for the overthrow of the government, was arrested and sentenced to 49 months in prison. While in prison, Karl enthusiastically received the news of the victory of the revolution in Russia. Coming out of prison in October 1918, Liebknecht continued his revolutionary activities.

He again called for the overthrow of the government. On October 7, 1918, a conference of the Spartak group took place, at which the program of the people's revolution was adopted. The conference called on the workers to overthrow the government, to fight for the alienation of the property of large landowners, bank capital, mines and domains, the establishment of a minimum wages, the immediate lifting of the state of siege and the release of political prisoners.

On November 9, 1918, the Spartak group called for a general strike and an armed uprising. On the same day, the Kaiser of Germany abdicated. K. Liebknecht proclaimed the Socialist Republic at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. Scheidemann, in response, put forward the slogan of creating a "free German republic". On November 11, the Spartak group was transformed into the Spartak Union (Spartakusbund), a revolutionary organization of leftist social democrats, but the Spartak Union was not strong enough to win a majority in the Soviets.

Leon Trotsky wrote about these events in the following way:

“... The defeat of the German army and the difficult economic situation of the country caused a powerful revolutionary movement. The immediate impetus for the events of November 9, 1918 was the uprising of sailors in Kiel, which began on November 2. The rebellious sailors refused to take part in the attack on the British fleet and organized their own council. The uprising quickly spread throughout the country. Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies began to spring up spontaneously in all cities. The movement reached a particularly large scale in Berlin, where a workers' strike began and rapidly expanded on November 5. On November 9, the entire Berlin proletariat was already on strike. On this day, a delegation was sent by the workers. to Wilhelm II, who, seeing that the army joined the workers, abdicated. In place of the deposed Hohenzollern government, the "Council of People's Delegate" was formed, which included 6 people: 3 Social Democrats - Ebert, Scheidemann and Landsberg and 3 independents - Haase, Ditman and Bart. Karl Liebknecht refused to join the Council of People's Deputies, explaining his refusal by his unwillingness to cooperate with the reformists.

The new government lifted the state of siege, proclaimed freedom of association and amnesty for political prisoners, and established an 8-hour working day. At the same time, it entered into an alliance with the monarchist P. Hindenburg, who was at the head of the army, in order to extinguish the revolutionary unrest.

On December 16, 1918, the Spartak Union organized a demonstration of 250,000 workers, the main demand of which was the transfer of full power to the Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets. At the end of December, the Communist Party of Germany was created and Liebknecht became its chairman. He had about two weeks to live - the leadership of the Social Democratic Party openly demanded his death.

As for the wife of Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxembourg was born in the Polish city of Zamosc (Zamosc), which then belonged to Russian Empire. One of the researchers of the life of the Red Rose noted that “... fate deprived her three times: as a woman in a society dominated by men, as a Jewess in an anti-Semitic environment, and as a cripple. She was too vertically challenged, limped, apparently due to a birth defect.

rose was youngest child in the family of a poor businessman. In the gymnasium, she showed herself as a brilliant student - the girl was very smart, distinguished by a strong character and irrepressible energy, the gift of persuasion and ardor of feelings. Already in the gymnasium, she participated in illegal revolutionary work, adjoining the Proletariat party.

At the age of 18, the girl went to Switzerland to study philosophy, and in 1897 she graduated from the University of Zurich. In her student years, she studied Marxist literature and was a member of a circle of Polish political emigrants.

Having married the lawyer Gustav Lübeck, Rosa received German citizenship and in 1898 moved to Germany, where she joined the work of the German Social Democracy. She soon divorced her first husband. Like Karl Liebknecht, Rosa was on the extreme left and was an ardent supporter of the revolution. She plunged headlong into politics: she wrote articles, delivered speeches, built the Polish and German Social Democratic parties, participated in the work of the Second International, debated with Plekhanov, Bebel, Kautsky, Zhores, Lenin. L. Trotsky wrote about her: “Rosa Luxemburg. spoke excellent Russian, had a deep knowledge of Russian literature, followed Russian political life, was connected with the Russian revolutionaries and lovingly covered the revolutionary steps of the Russian proletariat in the German press.

Luxembourg became a prominent theorist of communism, although she often argued with Lenin, calling him an "adventurer" and a "red Bonaparte." In 1904, Luxembourg actively criticized the Bolsheviks, but in 1905-07. approached them on many questions of strategy and tactics of the revolutionary struggle. Based on the experience of the revolution in Russia, Red Rose, together with K. Liebknecht and K. Zetkin, advocated the development of an extra-parliamentary struggle, including mass political strikes and street performances.

In December 1905, Luxembourg illegally arrived in Warsaw, launched revolutionary activities there, was arrested, but was soon released on bail. She left for Finland, and in September 1906 returned to Germany, where she was persecuted and repressed for her anti-war agitation. In total, she spent about 4 years in prisons.

Red Rose was the founder of the "Union of Spartacus", and then the Communist Party of Germany. She warmly welcomed the October Revolution in Russia. At the Founding Congress of the KKE at the end of December 1918, Luxembourg made a report on the program of the party. She had only two weeks to live.

On January 15, 1919, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were arrested and brutally murdered. At this time in Russia, the surviving members of the Romanov dynasty became hostages, taken as living collateral for arrested German communists. They were shot in St. Petersburg in retaliation for the death of the leaders of the German Communist Party. This execution was the last stage in the destruction of the Romanov dynasty after the murder in 1918 of members of the royal family in Yekaterinburg and Alapaevsk.

Official German sources presented the murder of Liebknecht and Luxembourg as an accident, a street "misunderstanding" due to the insufficient vigilance of the guard in the face of an angry crowd. However, few people believed these statements, the Liebknecht-Luxembourg spouses were too bright figures.

According to the second version, in the first days of the November Revolution of 1918, the leader of the Social Democrats, Scheidemann, opposed the overthrow of the monarchy, but obeyed the course of events and went over to the side of the rebels. Nevertheless, after the victory of the revolution, all his activities were focused on strangling the labor movement. Each action of the workers was brutally suppressed by punitive detachments, and the destruction of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg became the apogee.

On May 8-14, 1919, a court-martial was held in Berlin over the participants in the murder of Liebknecht and Luxembourg. The documents of this process were considered lost for many years and were found only in the 60s of the XX century, and in 1969 the former captain of the cavalry guard division Pabst, who led the arrest and murder of Liebknecht and Luxembourg, admitted that the whole truth about the events of January 15, 1919 only two officers knew - Pabst and Canaris.

The results of the trial did not satisfy the public, and the investigation continued. In the summer and autumn of 1919, interrogations of Scheidemann and Canaris, the future head of German military intelligence and counterintelligence, then still a lieutenant commander, took place. During the investigation, it turned out that the preparation of the assassination attempt began, apparently, in November or early December 1918. prevent them from engaging in campaigning and organizing activities.” On the night of December 9-10, 1918, soldiers broke into the office of the Rote Fahne newspaper to kill Liebknecht and Luxembourg. But they were not there. Witnesses later testified that even then a reward of 100,000 marks had been placed on the heads of Liebknecht and Luxembourg.

With the permission of the City Council in January 1919, the guards cavalry defense division, which participated in the arrest and murder of Liebknecht and Luxembourg, occupied the Eden Hotel. It was there that “Section 14” was supposed to be located - the social democracy assistance service, which was led by Scheidemann and G. Sklarz (this became clear in 1922).

The order to kill Liebknecht and Luxembourg was given verbally - they were to be delivered to "Eden" alive or dead. The detectives chased the revolutionaries, and the man who coordinated their actions was in the city commandant's office. It was Attorney Weissman, who in January 1919 was appointed Secretary of State.

The conspiracy against Liebknecht and Luxembourg was organized by three: the future head of the German government Scheidemann, the agent of the German imperial government Parvus and his employee, the revolutionary and businessman Georg Sklarz, and it was he who had to pay a reward of 50,000 marks for each killed. So, G. Sklarz played an important role in the preparation of the murder, although it was not possible to formally prove his involvement in the crime.

In 1922, the government of the Weimar Republic created another commission of inquiry to investigate the circumstances of the murder. At the same time, the Berlin Regional Court convicted naval lieutenant G.-V. for participation in the murder. Zoukhon (he was released from prison under an amnesty in 1932). Finally, in 1929, a trial took place against the prosecutor Iorns, who was the defender of one of the participants in the murder of Liebknecht and Luxembourg, Runge. However, this trial did not end in anything - it was not possible to prove the involvement of Iorns. More investigative actions were not resumed - the Nazis came to power, and the death of communist leaders ceased to be an important socio-political topic for many years.

In the post-Soviet period, another version arose, which was voiced by the historian Yuri Felshtinsky in 1997. In his opinion, the assassination of Liebknecht and Luxembourg was a secret action beneficial to Soviet Russia and personally V.I. Lenin (this point of view is also shared by O. Gordievsky, a KGB officer who fled to the West).

The prerequisites for the physical destruction of the revolutionaries arose as early as March 1918, when the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was concluded. This treaty was a stab in the back of the German revolution, since Russia's truce with the Kaiser's government reduced the already illusory chances of a successful communist uprising in Germany and, as a result, a pan-European revolution. R. Luxembourg believed that the working class of other European countries does not have the strength to initiate a revolution, and therefore the defeat of Germany increases the chances of a revolutionary explosion in Europe. Any military victory of the German army "means a new political and social triumph of reaction within the state."

It was precisely with the question of peace that the first serious differences between Luxembourg and Lenin's government were connected. “Her hopes that the Russian revolution would call the international proletariat to the fight were quickly extinguished,” wrote Paul Fröhlich. - Most of all, Rosa was afraid that the Bolsheviks might, by playing with German diplomats, conclude dangerous world". And her fears were not unfounded.

Liebknecht and Luxembourg severely criticized the Brest-Litovsk policy, calling it "treachery towards the international proletariat." However, R. Luxemburg did not limit her criticism of Lenin to the question of the Brest peace. It also attacked the agrarian policy of the Council of People's Commissars (“What the Bolsheviks are doing should work in the opposite direction, because the division of land among the peasants denies the path to socialist reforms”), and the Red Terror and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the violation of democratic norms, freedom of speech and freedom press (“Russian terror is only an expression of the weakness of the European proletariat”).

After the October Revolution of 1917, a significant part of the Bolshevik leadership was in the expectation that the revolution would spread first to Europe, and then to the entire globe - the fall of the Central European empires inspired such hope. On October 1, 1918, V. I. Lenin wrote: “The world revolution has come so close that we can count on its beginning in the next few days. We should. help the German workers to hasten the revolution that is about to begin in Germany." However, in reality, the victory of the revolution in industrial Germany was not in the interests of Lenin, since in this case Russia receded into the background, and Liebknecht and Luxemburg became at the head of the emerging Third International.

“Theoretically, the Communist International was considered a fraternal union of equal parties, but in practice, V. I. Lenin sought to make it an instrument of Soviet foreign policy,” writes Yu. Felshtinsky. It was difficult to disguise these plans, and the leaders of the world communist movement opposed the hasty organizations III International. “Rosa Luxemburg especially insisted on this, who did not want to allow the Comintern to become an annex to the Leninist Central Committee,” wrote the historian Nikolaevsky.

In order to retain power, Lenin even went so far as to sabotage the German revolution by openly declaring to the Kaiser government and the German communists that the Red Army, at least until March 1919, would not interfere in the German revolution that had already begun. Then Rosa Luxemburg stood at the head of the Marxists, who criticized the Bolshevik regime and accused Lenin of creating not a dictatorship of the proletariat, but a dictatorship over the proletariat. She was perhaps the only foreign communist capable of seriously resisting attempts to turn the Comintern into an instrument of Soviet foreign policy.

Therefore, when in January 1919 the uprising in Berlin was crushed and "murderers from among military officers of the right-wing extremist wing silenced" Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Moscow was able to dictate its will to the German communists. And a month and a half later, participants in the Constituent Congress of the Third Comintern, which was formed on March 2, 1919, arrived in the capital of Russia. The Comintern became a tool to help keep the German communists in line.

Contemporaries of those events, the interest of the Soviet government in the elimination of Luxembourg and Liebknecht was obvious. Some researchers saw in their elimination a planned action organized by the German and Soviet governments through the German military intelligence. This seemingly fantastic theory was confirmed in the memoirs of Wilhelm Pieck about the last days and hours of Luxembourg's life.

He said that Karl and Rosa first rented an apartment in the Novokölln area, but after two days the apartment had to be changed. The move took place on the evening of January 14 and was extremely risky, because the soldiers stopped any transport (it was for this reason that Luxembourg and Liebknecht could not leave Berlin). However, Peak writes, “due to one as yet undiscovered betrayal, the White Guard knew the new location of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht the very next day. When I am on the evening of January 15th. wanted to bring to the apartment and hand over to both comrades the necessary identity cards in case their house was checked, the apartment was already occupied by the military, and Karl Liebknecht was arrested and taken away. Rosa Luxemburg was still in the apartment and was guarded by a large number of soldiers. Some time later, Rosa Luxembourg and I were taken to the Eden Hotel.

What is this "unrevealed betrayal"? Yu. Felshtinsky writes that Karl Radek was apparently involved in organizing the murder of Liebknecht and Luxembourg. This conclusion was reached by Karl Liebknecht's brother, Theodor, a well-known German Social Democrat, a lawyer who had been involved in an unofficial investigation of the murder for many years. The materials collected by Theodore perished during a bombing raid in November 1943. Theodore was not going to return to this issue, but in 1947 the historian B. Nikolaevsky asked him to tell about the activities of the Swiss revolutionary Karl Moor, who was an agent of the German government. In response, Theodor Liebknecht told Nikolaevsky about Radek's role in the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. Of course, Nikolaevsky did not immediately believe Theodor Liebknecht's story.

B. Nikolaevsky knew about Radek's personal dislike for Rosa Luxemburg, who at one time insisted on his expulsion from the Polish and German Social Democratic Parties. But Radek was considered a victim of the Stalin regime, and besides, Theodore had no evidence - only the story of his brother hiding from persecution. In the end, Karl Liebknecht could be wrong and Radek's betrayal only seemed to him.

Only after the death of Theodore himself, after the death of Stalin, after the 20th Congress, and finally after publications in 1956-1958. documents revealing the connections of the Bolsheviks (including Radek) with the Kaiser government and its agents (primarily Parvus), Nikolayevsky began to mention the conclusions of T. Liebknecht. He wrote: “A special mention must be made of Radek. Theodor Liebknecht said that Karl Liebknecht in their last meeting(on the eve of Karl's arrest) said that he had learned about Radek. "monstrous things", which he promised to tell during the next meeting. This meeting did not take place, and Theodor believed that Radek had betrayed Karl!

To the proletarians of all countries.

Proletarians! Comrades!

We send you our call at the most difficult moment for us, we turn to you, gripped by the deepest pain, we speak to you, mourning the greatest loss that could befall us.

Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg are no longer alive...

Do you, French comrades, remember the day when Jean Jaurès was kidnapped from you? Only blind madness, only the bloody fanaticism of an incited bourgeois mercenary could commit this atrocity. The bourgeoisie needed a sacrifice, it had to remove the last obstacle that stood between it and the war it had started, and it chose the man whose influence in favor of the preservation of peace was the most powerful. A cry of indignation swept through the whole International, a cry so loud that it drowned out even the hoarse howl of the wolves of war. And here in Germany the socialists, who have already entered into an alliance with the Kaiser, who in a secret pact have already promised Prussian militarism and German imperialism their assistance in the crime - how they raised their voices over the death of Jaurès, whom they were just about to betray! How they shouted about the defilement of law and morality, about the disgrace of the ideals of mankind!

And yet the crime committed then pales in comparison to what has happened now. Then the crime was committed by the bourgeoisie, as it did by the thousands for its profits; then our best friend was killed by our enemy. We knew that the bourgeoisie was our enemy, and we could not expect anything else from it. Now this has been done by a "socialist" government, a government that has gained power thanks to the revolution, thanks to the revolutionary energy and intensity of the struggle of the workers and soldiers. This government killed the first fighters of the revolution!

Yes, workers and comrades, before you, before the International, before the whole world, before modernity and before history, we throw the accusation:

The government of Ebert-Scheidemann-Noske deliberately and willingly led to the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg.

Proletarians! Comrades!

Remember where we were. From the end of October 1918 it became clear to everyone in Germany that revolution was inevitable. The bourgeoisie trembled. She knew that the revolution would be for her a terrible retribution for all her crimes. But she also knew that there was one group suitable for her defense: the Ebert-Scheidemann party. Who, if not this party, has for four years been engaged in justifying in the eyes of the proletariat every cheating of the military clique, every meanness of diplomacy, every atrocity of the bourgeoisie? It was to this group that the bourgeoisie in distress turned. And the Ebert-Scheidemanns gladly took upon themselves its defense. They used every means to put the minds to sleep again and, if a thunderstorm breaks, make it harmless. When the first sailor disturbances broke out in Kiel on November 3rd, none other than Noske, the same Noske who is now in the imperial government, was sent to Kiel to stifle the movement. Until the very morning of November 9th - the day when the movement swept over Berlin - the Ebert-Scheidemanns worked against the revolution. And only when, despite all efforts, it turned out to be impossible to avoid the revolution, they took the lead in the movement in order to lead it to the goal they had set: to rescue the bourgeoisie from trouble.

All their actions since November 9th have served this purpose. One of the first was the declaration that private property is inviolable. The entrepreneurs were given the most reassuring assurances. All previous orders were restored in the organization of departments, in justice, in duties and taxes. The commanding power of the officers, destroyed by the soldiers, was again restored. The old servants of Wilhelm II - from the Hindenburg and the gentlemen from the foreign department to the last switchman were approved in their positions. The weapons were taken away from the soldiers, they were left to the officers. The workers were urged to remain calm and, in response to their just demands for higher wages, they were presented with the "need of the fatherland", that is, the bourgeoisie.

The Ebert-Scheidemann government was clearly aware that this goal of saving the bourgeoisie could be achieved only by the most fierce struggle against the representatives of the proletarian revolution, especially against the murdered comrades, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

And so, in the first weeks after the revolution, it launched a campaign of slander against the Spartacus League and against both comrades, the equal of which must be looked for in history. Already in November in Berlin, in front of the government, leaflets and posters called for the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. Rewards were given for killing them. The Ebert-Scheidemann government did not lift a finger. Everyone knew very well from which circles these appeals came. The case was left uninvestigated. The whole pack of the bourgeois press picked up this slogan. Vorverts, the organ of the Ebert-Scheidemanns, was at the head of all persecution. The counter-revolution came out bolder and bolder: the Ebert-Scheidemann government itself summoned counter-revolutionary troops to Berlin. It was clear to everyone: the leaders of the counter-revolution, bitter enemies of the proletariat, ready to drown the revolution in a sea of ​​blood, were the Ebert-Scheidemanns.

January 1919 brought the implementation of these plans. The Ebert-Scheidemanns have prepared a new blow. The president of the police elected by the Berlin revolutionary committees, who had revealed all the audacious plans of the counter-revolution, had to be removed. The Berlin proletariat did not intend to tolerate this. He tried to deflect the blow. Behind the government of Ebert-Scheidemann was not military force. At this critical moment, it openly threw off the mask of revolution and showed its true face. It has armed the students, formed a battalion of one officer, distributed weapons to the sons of bankers and academics, called up two or three dark regiments, consisting of 18 and 19 year old youths, these blood-covered suppressors of the revolution in Finland and the Ukraine are completing their bloody work in Berlin. Without trial they put the proletarians against the wall. Parliamentarians were beaten to death with a whip, workers were seized, broke into apartments and robbed them. The Ebert-Scheidemanns wanted to show that they, too, knew how to operate in Berlin in the same way that Ludendorff and Co. operated in Belgium and Northern France. They wanted to show themselves as worthy successors to Halifet and the other Versailles executioners of the Commune.

It was clear to everyone at that moment: as soon as the leaders of the Spartacist movement, comrades Liebknecht and Luxembourg, fell into the hands of this pack, they would not get away from it alive. Every child in Berlin knew this. The government of Ebert-Scheidemann also knew this. It set no limits to the rampage of its gangs. Vorverts still incited them every day. And then something happened that has no name.

Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg were captured, stunned with rifle butts, shot dead, brutally murdered.

Ebert-Scheidemannism did everything to cover up the murderers set by it. For the sake of their justification, she dissolved the most outright lie, for example, that Karl Liebknecht was shot while trying to escape: the evidence proved otherwise. Tov. Rosa Luxembourg is killed by mob; however, it was established that when leaving the premises of the military department, from where she was to be transferred to prison, she was knocked over by the butts of the soldiers who stood ready. In order to thicken the darkness around the crime, even the corpse was hidden. "He was stolen," say the Ebert-Scheidemanns. So, after the murder by a military guard, accompanied by a military convoy, the corpse was stolen! For two whole weeks they could not get the body. The investigation was turned over to the military courts, and every child will understand that they could have only one interest: to let the guilty escape. The proposal to transfer the investigation to a non-partisan court was rejected by the government. The implicated officers, against whom even their own testimony is heavy evidence, were left at large. Witnesses are gone.

Proletarians of all countries!

This murder will find other judges. We turn to you, comrades. You have the right to pronounce judgment. After all, for you, for all the oppressed, they lived, for you they died. Your leaders and your friends it was.

Proletarians, raise your voice! Shame, eternal shame on murderers! They should have no place among the comrades of the whole world. Executioners of the Commune, let them perish under the weight of their shameful act, together with their capitalist masters!

In this terrible hour, we cry out to you: do not allow this death to be in vain! The last thought of the dead was of you and your release. Rise up in your own countries to fight your oppressors!

And on the day when capitalism, with all its executioners, showered with curses, finds its grave, the dead comrades will rise from the dead on that day. Not the sound of the trumpet of Doomsday will wake them up, but the cry of millions all over the world:

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Communist Party of Germany.

(Union of Spartacus).

Text reproduced from the edition: Communist International: Organ of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. - M., 1919. No. 1. S. 74 - 75.

Union "Spartacus" was headed by well-known left figures Karl Liebknecht (Karl Liebknecht) and Rosa Luxemburg (Rosa Luxemburg). In January 1919, they, almost the same age, were about fifty years old.

Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in 1909

Liebknecht and Luxemburg came to revolutionary ideas in different ways. He is a lawyer who defended illegal socialists. She, who came from a family of a provincial Polish businessman of Jewish origin, was educated in Switzerland, became known as a journalist and speaker. She repeatedly had to sit in Polish prisons until she managed to escape to Germany through a fictitious marriage.

But it was in Germany that Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the recognized leaders of the Marxist youth involved in the creation of the International, were destined to perish. It happened on the same day - January 15, 1919.

Germany, January 1919

Karl Liebknecht speaking at a rally in January 1919 in Berlin

In the winter of 1918-19, a revolutionary situation began to take shape in Germany. The ruling Social Democrats in the country could not do anything to overcome the economic crisis. Society was in a depression. The protest moods of the youth and impoverished workers were actively used by the Marxists.

In January, Berlin experienced the events that historians later called the “Spartacus uprising.” The union, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, brought people to the streets. The rebels, who demanded the establishment of Soviet power in Germany, were opposed by armed soldiers. victims.

For the capture of the organizers of the rebellion, the authorities appointed a large reward. On January 15, both were captured by the Freikorps, members of the paramilitary patriotic societies, many of whom in a few years became prominent figures in the National Socialist Party.

Murder without trial

Flowers on the grave of Rosa Luxembourg

January 15, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg died. They were killed on the way to prison. Regarding the death of the latter, one of the historians noted that with the assassination of Luxembourg, Kaiser Germany celebrated its last triumph, and the first - Nazi. There is a lot of truth in these words. After January 1919, the replacement of communist ideas by national socialist ones accelerated. Instead of a socialist experiment, Germany was to experience a Nazi catastrophe. (bb)

When, on the evening of January 15, 1919, Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, stunned by rifle butts, were brought by car from the Eden Hotel in Berlin to the Tiergarten, where they were expected to die, at first this had almost no effect on the course of political events. The last hour of the revolution has already struck, in which neither Liebknecht, nor Rosa Luxemburg, in essence, were active. actors. In any case, the massacre of the revolution was inevitable. Perhaps the murder of both of its symbolic leaders gave a signal for this, but in the general course of events this crime seemed then to be nothing more than a striking episode.

Today, it is horrified to realize that this episode was a key one that influenced the entire subsequent history of the revolutionary drama in Germany. When viewed from a distance of half a century, it reveals something of the terrible, fraught with unpredictable consequences of the event at Calvary, which, at the time of its accomplishment, also did not seem to lead to any noticeable changes.

Death united Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. In life, except for the very last days, they had little in common. Them life paths very different, and in their warehouse they were different people.

Liebknecht was one of the most courageous people ever born in Germany. But he cannot be attributed to major political figures. Until 1914, he was practically unknown outside the SPD. And in the party, he did not have much weight, an inconspicuous son of a great father - Wilhelm Liebknecht, the founder of the party, "a hot, wayward lawyer with a good heart and a penchant for drama."

He worked with youth, and wrote a book against militarism, for which he was sentenced to a year and a half in a fortress. After that, the party nominated him for parliamentary work. From 1908 he was a member of the Prussian Landtag, and from 1912 a member of the Reichstag. Then Rosa Luxemburg spoke rather ironically about Deputy Liebknecht: “Always only in parliament, at meetings, in commissions, at meetings, in an eternal rush, running from train to tram, from tram to taxi, all pockets are full of notebooks, hands are just busy bought newspapers, for which he, of course, does not have time to read, with his body and soul covered with street dust ... "And even at the beginning of the war, trying to create an opposition anti-war group in the party, Rosa wrote: "Karl is simply elusive - he rushes like cloud in the wind.

From the beginning of the century, Rosa Luxembourg herself was considered in Germany a political figure of the first rank, although she was triple “alien” - as a woman, as a Jew and as a semi-foreigner (she was born in the part of Poland that belonged to Russia and acquired German citizenship only through a fictitious marriage). Moreover, she was naturally a bogeyman for the bourgeoisie, and also, because of her radical views, a bogeyman for the Social Democrats. Nevertheless, she was admired by friends and enemies - often against their will - by the versatility of her abilities, bordering on genius: an extremely subtle and sharp intellect, a brilliant writing style that captivates oratory, political passion combined with originality of thought. However, she remained a kind-hearted, charming woman. Her wit, her ability to be charmingly serious, her passion and kindness made her forget that outwardly she was ugly. Therefore, some loved her, while others feared and hated her.

She has always been in the forefront of fighters in disputes that at the beginning of the 20th century. fought in the international socialist movement, a worthy ally or opponent of Bebel, Kautsky, Lenin, Zhores. And in the intervals - participation in the Russian revolution of 1905 and repeated stays in prisons: for lèse majesté, inciting disobedience, insulting the officer corps. Out of the ordinary, an outstanding woman who, perhaps, is still the greatest woman of our century.

The war suddenly changed everything, just as they say in Faust: "... that a woman will go a thousand steps, a man will overcome with one jump."

When the war broke out, the unknown parliamentarian-backbencher Karl Liebknecht eclipsed the great Rosa Luxembourg and became a figure of fat significance, not because of some accomplishments distinguished by political brilliance or intellectual originality, but simply because of two courageous deeds. But it was extraordinary courage, unsurpassed in its moral strength. December 2, 1914 he alone voted in the Reichstag against the approval of the second war loan. Only those who know what mood1 prevailed then in Germany and in the German Reichstag can appreciate the courage this step required. And on May 1, 1916, Liebknecht began his speech during a demonstration at Potsdamerplatz in Berlin (it was not a big demonstration - several hundred people, no more than a thousand, surrounded by police) with the words: “Down with the war! Down with the government! He was not allowed to speak further. The policemen grabbed him and took him away. He disappeared behind the walls of a hard labor prison for two and a half years. But these four words were more important in their consequences than the longest and most brilliant speech. When Karl Liebknecht was released from prison on October 23, 1918, for the whole of Germany and far beyond its borders, he was the personification of the protest against the war, the personification of the revolution.

Rosa Luxembourg was released from prison only on November 9, 1918. She spent almost the entire war behind bars: first for a year on a political sentence passed before the war, and then for two and a half years as a "potentially dangerous person for the state." She used these years to write classic works on criticism of German social democracy and the lessons of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Her head turned gray, but her spirit fully retained its brilliance and independence.

Now the two of them had little more than two months to live, those two months during which the revolution broke out and collapsed in Germany.

If you ask what contribution Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg made to the drama of these two months, it was not great. Even if they didn’t exist at all, everything would have happened in exactly the same way. Even one-day personalities, like the sailors Artelt and Dorrenbach, had a stronger impact on the course of events, albeit one-time, than both great revolutionaries. Liebknecht and Luxemburg could not really influence the real main actors, Ebert and his team, the "revolutionary elders", the sailors, the troops stationed in Berlin, both socialist parties, meetings of the Soviets, the masses with their unpredictable actions. Liebknecht spoke several times at rallies, but Rosa Luxemburg did not even do that.

Everything they did during those sixty-seven days can be recreated down to the last detail. They founded and edited, overcoming many difficulties and obstacles, the newspaper Rote Fahne, in which every day

printed their editorials. They - to no avail - took part in meetings and meetings of the "revolutionary elders" and the Berlin organization of the SPD. In view of these failures, they finally decided to create their own party, prepared and held the Founding Congress of the KKE, making keynote speeches at it. Rosa Luxembourg was the author of the draft party program. However, the Founding Congress of the KKE did not bring personal success to Liebknecht and Luxembourg - according to important issues they were in the minority. All this happened in last days 1918 After that, Liebknecht, beginning on January 4, 1919, still participated at his own risk in the fruitless meetings of the Revolutionary Committee of the 53rd in the building of the Berlin Police Presidium. During this period, Rosa Luxembourg alone edited Rote Fahne. And then that stingy measure of life was exhausted, which was destined to be lived by both of them.

If we add to this participation in demonstrations, speaking at them with impromptu speeches, constant discussions with like-minded people, then a picture arises before our eyes to the limit of busy time, feverish and sleepless nights. During these remaining days from November 9, 1918 to January 15, 1919, Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg worked like crazy, at the limit of their strength. They achieved practically nothing. They did not become the leaders of the Bolshevik revolution in Germany. They didn't want to be. Rosa Luxemburg because, for reasons of principle, she rejected the violence that flowed from the revolutionary concept, and repeatedly made almost solemn declarations that the revolution should naturally and democratically flow from the consciousness of the proletarian masses and that in Germany the revolution is only in its very early stages. Liebknecht because he was convinced that the revolution takes place on its own and, in fact, has already taken place, therefore not needing any organization and prodding. Lenin, having barely returned to Russia in April 1917, proclaimed the slogan "Organization, organization and once again organization!" Liebknecht and Luxemburg organized nothing. Liebknecht's password was "agitation". Rosa Luxembourg's password is "enlightenment".

And we must give her her due: no one from the very beginning so far-sightedly, so frankly and mercilessly analyzed the course of the revolution in Germany and the reasons for its collapse - the dishonesty of the SPD, the disunity of the SPD, the lack of concept among the "revolutionary elders" - as it is day after day in Rote Fane was made by Rosa Luxembourg. But it was, although magnificent in its own way, but a journalistic, and not a revolutionary feat. The only thing that Rosa Luxemburg achieved was that she incurred the mortal hatred of those whom she branded and exposed.

In the full sense of the word, this hatred was deadly, moreover, from the very beginning. It is provable that the plans for the assassination of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg arose at least from the beginning of December, and since then this assassination has been systematically prepared. Already in the first days of December, posters were posted all over Berlin with the following text: “Workers, citizens! Fatherland is dying. Save her! The danger threatens not from the outside, but from within - this is the “Spartacus group”. Kill her leaders! Death to Liebknecht! Then you will have peace, work and bread! Soldiers-front-line soldiers".

Soldiers-front-line soldiers at that time had not yet arrived in Berlin. The call to kill came from another source.

Some data allow us to judge what kind of source it was. The then deputy of Wels, the military commandant of the city, a certain Anton Fischer in 1920 stated in writing that in November and December 1918 the purpose of his department was “round-the-clock search and persecution of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in order to prevent them from engaging in propaganda and organizational activities.” Already on the night of December 9-10, soldiers of the 2nd Guards Regiment broke into the editorial office of Rote Fahne with the intention (which they later admitted) to kill Liebknecht. In the course of the trial that was held over this incident, half a dozen witnesses stated that even then a reward of fifty thousand marks each was assigned to the head of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. This reward was promised by Scheidemann and his close friend Georg Sklyarz, a millionaire who had made a fortune in the war.

On January 13, 1919, two days before the dastardly assassination, the “Information Sheet of the Volunteer Corps in Berlin” stated: “There are more and more urgent fears that the government might weaken its actions against the Spartakists [!] (Author's note).

As assured by authoritative sources, there is no intention to rest on our laurels. Therefore, the most energetic actions will also be taken against the leaders of the movement. Berliners should not think that those who have so far managed to hide will be allowed to sit quietly somewhere. The next few days will show that they are taken seriously.” On the same day, a poem appeared in the central organ of the Social Democrats, Vorverts, with the following concluding stanza:

Many hundreds killed

in the same row - the proletarians!

But not among them, no

Karl, Rosa, Radek and company...

A few days earlier, Gustav Noske, appointed by Ebert as "commander-in-chief of the civil war", who was in the "Luizenstift" in Dahlem, personally ordered the then Lieutenant Friedrich Wilhelm von Oertzen (which he later confirmed in writing) to establish a permanent wiretapping of Liebknecht's telephone conversations and from day to day hourly report on all Liebknecht's movements to Captain Pabst from the Guards Cavalry rifle division. It was on the basis of this order that Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were captured, and Pabst became the leader of the assassination team.

Surely, over time, it became clear to Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg that they were being hunted. It is remarkable - and this does them credit - that, despite this, they never once had the idea of ​​​​leaving Berlin. They also refused personal protection, which their supporters had repeatedly proposed to create. They devoted themselves completely to political and journalistic work and did not think about personal security. Perhaps they were too carefree, since both were already used to arrests and imprisonment and did not fear them. It is possible that it was precisely because of their previous experience that for a long time they simply could not imagine that this time we are talking about their life. So, Rosa Luxembourg, during the “arrest”, touchingly packed a suitcase with essentials and favorite books, which had been with her more than once in prison.

And yet, in these last days, a premonition of death invaded their lives. They were hunted from the very beginning. In sixty-seven days, they almost never went home. I had to spend the night, saving hours of sleep, either in the editorial office, or in hotels, or in the apartments of friends. But in the last week of their lives, this constant change of addresses took on a new meaning - it turned into a continuous flight, a rush from one precarious shelter to another, eeriely anticipating the fate of the Jews hunted to death in the third empire.

The office of the Rote Fahne at the end of the Wilhelmstrasse had become an unreliable place. Government troops broke into it almost daily. One of the editorial staff, whom they mistook for Rosa Luxembourg, barely escaped death. Rosa Luxemburg spent several days editing a newspaper in the apartment of a doctor on the Gallesestor, and then, when her presence began to weigh on the hosts, in the apartment of a worker in Neukölln. On Sunday, January 12, Karl Liebknecht joined her, but two days later, on January 14, they were warned of the danger by phone and left this apartment (perhaps it was a rigged call from the center where the murder was planned and from which already during for several days, their movements were monitored, and perhaps these movements were directed). They moved to their last refuge - in Wilmersdorf, not far from Ferbelierplatz at the address: Mannheimer Strasse 53, near Markusson. There, on the morning of January 15, they wrote their last articles for Rote Fahne, which, apparently, do not sound like words of farewell by chance.

Rosa Luxembourg's article was entitled "Order reigns in Berlin". It ended with the words: “You stupid executioners! Your "order" is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will “rise with a roar” and, to your horror, will blow the fanfare: I was, I am, I will be!”

Liebknecht's article ("In spite of everything!") ended like this: "Those who have suffered defeat today will be the winners of tomorrow ... Whether we are then still alive or not, our program will live; it will dominate the world of liberated humanity. Despite

nothing!”

By evening, when Rosa Luxembourg lay down, feeling headache, and Wilhelm Pieck arrived with proofs of the next issue of Rote Fahne, the bell rang. At the door stood the innkeeper Mehring, who wished to see Herr Liebknecht and Madame Luxembourg. At first, both ordered to say that they were not there, but Mering did not leave. At his call, a group of soldiers appeared under the command of Lieutenant Lindner. They entered the apartment, found there those they were looking for, and invited them to follow them. Liebknecht and Luxemburg collected their belongings and were taken to the Eden Hotel, which had been the headquarters of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division since the morning of that day. They were already waiting there. The subsequent events developed very quickly and can be summarized in a few words.

At the Eden Hotel they were met with insults and beatings. Liebknecht, who had been smashed in two places with a butt to bleed his head, asked for a bandage to bandage his wounds, but he was refused. Then he asked permission to wash in the toilet, but he was not allowed to do that either. Then both arrested were brought to the first floor to the room of Captain Pabst, who was in charge of the operation. What Pabst had a conversation about is unknown. There is only a statement made by Pabst during a later trial | process when he was caught lying on a number of counts. According to him, he asked Rosa Luxembourg: "Are you Mrs. Rosa Luxembourg?" - "Please decide for yourself." - "Judging by the card, it's you." "Well, if you think so..."

Liebknecht, and a little later also Rosa Luxemburg, were led or dragged, subjected to beatings, down the stairs and handed over to the assassination squad that was already at the ready. Meanwhile, Pabst was sitting in his office and was compiling a detailed report that appeared the next day in all the newspapers: Liebknecht was shot dead while trying to escape while being transported to the Moabit remand prison, and Rosa Luxembourg was captured by an angry crowd of people who overwhelmed the guards and taken away in an unknown direction.

In fact, the street at the side exit of the hotel, through which Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg had been led out on their last journey, was cordoned off and empty. On duty at this exit was the huntsman Runge. He was ordered to crush the head with a butt of those who were led through this exit - first Liebknecht, then Rosa Luxemburg. He did so, but both terrible blows inflicted by him turned out to be non-fatal. Liebknecht, and a few minutes later Rosa Luxemburg, stunned or half-stunned by terrible blows, were thrown into the approaching cars. Liebknecht's assassination squad was commanded by Lieutenant Commander Pflugk-Hartung, and Rosa Luxembourg's assassins were commanded by Lieutenant Vogel.

Both cars with an interval of a few minutes headed for the Tiergarten. At Neuensee, Liebknecht was ordered to get out of the car; he was then killed by a pistol shot to the back of the head, and the body was taken to the morgue in the same car as "the corpse of an unknown man".

Rosa Luxembourg, immediately after leaving the Eden Hotel, was shot in the temple in the car and thrown from Liechtenstein Brücke into the Landwehrkanal. It has not been definitively established what the cause of death was - blows to the head, a bullet or drowning. An autopsy of the corpse, which surfaced a few months later, showed that the skull was not split, and the bullet wound may not have been fatal.

Why were Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg persecuted and killed? The legend, zealously propagated by the Social Democrats, claims that they fell victim to a civil war that they themselves unleashed. In this, at least as far as Rosa Luxemburg is concerned, there is not a word of truth. And even if Liebknecht's participation in the January meeting of the Revolutionary Committee is regarded as an act of civil war, then the question arises: how to explain that nothing happened to the other fifty-two participants in this meeting? Why was Georg Ledebour, who participated in this meeting in the same way and was arrested on January 10, later acquitted by the court, and the persecution of Liebknecht began already in the first days of December, when no one could have foreseen the January events? No, the persecution and murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg was not a civil war action. There were other reasons for that.

The first was Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg like no other; personified in the eyes of both friends and enemies the revolution in Germany. They were its symbol, and therefore, by killing them, they were also killing the revolution. This applies even more to Karl Liebknecht than to Rosa Luxemburg.

Another reason is that they, like no one else, saw through the dishonorable game that its imaginary leaders played with the German revolution from the very beginning, and daily exposed it at the top of their voices. They were qualified witnesses who were killed because their evidence had nothing to counter. This applies even more to Rosa Luxemburg than to Karl Liebknecht.

The murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg was the murder of those who surpassed their opponents in courage and intelligence, it was the murder of an irrefutable truth.

Who was responsible for this murder? The direct perpetrators were, of course, the then captain Pabst, | who decades later, in 1962, using the statute of limitations, openly boasted of the work of his hands and his team of assassins. Of course, they were not mere instruments of crime, stupidly and indifferently carrying out the orders received. No, they not only deliberately committed this crime, but also showed zeal in doing so. But were they the only or even the main perpetrators?

It is impossible not to notice that the persecution of Liebknecht and Luxembourg, open calls for their murder and preparations for the commission of this crime began no later than the first days of December 1918, long before the killers from the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division entered the scene. We must not forget the reward promised at that time for the heads of Karl and Rosa, the statement of the Deputy Military Commandant of Berlin, the hostile campaign unleashed not only by the bourgeois, but especially the Social Democratic press, and after the crime was committed, the hypocritical justifications of Scheidemann, about Noske's cold satisfaction. Ebert, as far as one can tell, always kept a deathly silence.

It is impossible not to see the undisguised, shameless patronage that was provided by the judicial and government bodies to the direct killers (most of them, as a result of a farcical trial, were acquitted by the military court of their own division; those of them who had to be sentenced to insignificant terms for "failure to provide due protection” and “removal of the corpse”, immediately after the trial they were given the opportunity to escape). Finally, it is impossible not to see the reaction of all bourgeois and Social-Democratic public opinion to this murder, which expressed a whole range of feelings - from tacit justification to open jubilation. That was the reaction of the accomplices-concealers, and nothing has changed in it to this day.

As early as 1954, the liberal jurist and historian Erich Eyck wrote: “Murders cannot be justified by recalling the old proverb “he who lifts the sword, let him die by the sword.” Too many bloody crimes were committed by associates of Liebknecht and Luxembourg to experience too much indignation at the fate that befell them. And back in 1962, the Bulletin of the Office of the Press and Information of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany (No. 27) called these murders "execution according to the laws of wartime." The assassination on January 15, 1919, was the first step, a harbinger of thousands of murders in the following months of Noske's rule, millions and millions of murders in the subsequent years of Hitler's rule. It was the starting shot for all other kills. And it is precisely this crime that they still do not want to recognize as such, it still awaits redemption and repentance. Therefore, it still cries out to the sky over Germany. Therefore, it still, like a deadly laser beam, sends its scorching light.

Civil War

From January May 1919, and in some places until the middle of summer, a bloody civil war raged in Germany, resulting in thousands of deaths and an inexpressible feeling of endless bitterness.

This civil war gave birth to the Weimar Republic and determined its ill-fated historical path. It was she who also conceived the third empire, which arose later. For it made the split of the old Social Democracy incurable, deprived the rest of the main part of the SPD of any opportunity to ally with the forces of the left in the future, dooming it forever to the position of a minority party. In addition, the civil war gave birth in the volunteer detachments that fought and won it for the Social Democratic government, views and habits that later became dominant in the detachments of the SA and SS. Often they grew out of the same detachments of volunteers. Therefore, the civil war of 1919 was the central event in the history of Germany in our century. However, in a strange way, it is almost completely thrown out, etched out of the historical picture. There are reasons for that.

One of them is just shame. All participants are ashamed of the role they played in the civil war. The defeated revolutionaries are ashamed that they did not accomplish any glorious deeds, did not win even partial victories, did not manage to die with dignity. Only complete confusion, indecision, the inconsistency of a thousand nameless sufferings and deaths appeared. But the winners are ashamed. They formed a strange coalition of social democrats and future Nazis. Both those and other partners of this unnatural coalition did not subsequently feel like admitting to their deeds: the Social Democrats - that they took into their service those who anticipated the thugs from the SA and SS, became a model for them, and set these future Nazis on of their like-minded people, the Nazis - that they allowed themselves to be recruited by the Social Democrats and, under their leadership, they learned the taste of blood. History is willingly silent about those events that cause a sense of shame in all its participants.

But there is another reason for the disappearance of the civil war of 1919 from the history of Germany and the memory of the Germans: this war does not provide material for interesting "stories", there is nothing in it that could form the basis of an exciting narrative - no drama with tense development of action and memorable climaxes, nor an exciting fight between worthy opponents. The bloody wave rolled lazily across Germany, without immediately covering the whole country. It was worth trampling a smoky fire in one place, as it flared up somewhere else. It all started in early February on the coast of the North Sea, where Bremen became the center, then, in mid-February, the main theater of the war unexpectedly turned out to be in the Ruhr region, at the end of February - in Thuringia and Central Germany, at the beginning and middle of March - in Berlin, in April - in Bavaria, in May - in Saxony. In between there were large local events like the battles in Braunschweig and Magdeburg, as well as countless small clashes, preserved only in local chronicles: a confused, shapeless series of scattered large and small battles, battles and killings.

Moreover, every time from the very beginning it was clear how it would all end, everything developed according to the same pattern, repeating itself with endless monotony. The five or six months of the civil war of 1919 are just as difficult to describe concretely as the five or six days of the revolution in November 1918, of which they were a copy. Then everywhere in Germany, with slight local deviations, the same picture was repeated, and so it was now; then the unhindered victory of the revolution; now the counter-revolution's victorious march, not unhindered, but irresistible. The only difference was that then, in November, events were moving at a frantic pace, and now they were moving with painfully slow methodicality; then some blood had been shed, but now it was in torrents; then the revolution was a spontaneous, unguided action of the masses themselves, to which the Social Democratic leaders submitted with the greatest unwillingness, allowing themselves to be placed in power, while now the counter-revolution was a systematic, legalized, military action carried out on the orders of the same Social Democratic leaders. .

And there is no doubt about it: the initiative in unleashing the civil war, the decision to do so, and thus - if you think in these categories - the "blame" for the civil war belongs to the leadership of the Social Democratic Party, especially Noske and Ebert. Of course, the other side sometimes gave them a reason to attack, but not always. After the January events in Berlin, there was only one more "second wave" of revolution - Munich in April, but otherwise Ebert and Noske were on the offensive from beginning to end. In order to understand what happened, it is necessary, first of all, to imagine the course of their thoughts.

At the same time, you should not spend a lot of time on Noske. Noske was a primitive rapist who recognized in politics only the simplest formula "friend or foe acting accordingly simple method: to beat any enemy, at any time and with all available means. His subsequent statements, as well as his deeds, show that he was a man incapable of versatile assessments, in love with violence, in his temperament he was more suitable for the National Socialists than for the Social Democrats. However, Noske was not the "think tank" of the civil war. He was only the right hand - or right fist - of Ebert. It is Ebert that figure that allows you to understand something.

Ebert was not a Nazi, even in his subconscious, and was not without analytical skills. He sincerely considered himself a Social Democrat and, in his own way, even a friend of the workers. His goals were those of the pre-war SPD as formulated by his predecessors: parliamentarization and social reform. But he was not a revolutionary. He considered the revolution "superfluous" (his favorite phrase) and illegal. He hated her "like a sin." Everything he really ever wanted was achieved in October 1918 when the Kaiser gave power to Parliament and the Social Democrats entered the government. Everything that November 1918 added to this was, in his eyes, stupidity, misunderstanding and disgrace. And the fact that he himself was forced to speak out in words in support of the revolution made it even less attractive in his eyes.

Ebert never felt remorse for having betrayed the revolution, but rather resented it for sometimes forcing him to play a double game. If he felt any pangs of conscience, it was only in relation to the old system, since for some time he had to pretend to be a revolutionary. But circumstances were stronger and forced him to pretend. He had to enter into an alliance with the "independents" and go to ensure that his power was legalized by the Soviets, to play the role of "people's representative." It was all very unpleasant, but it didn't matter in his eyes. In his heart he always remained the viceroy of the old state and the old parliamentary majority.

After the January 19, 1919 elections to the National Assembly restored this former majority that existed in the Reichstag (SPD - 38%, Center - 19, German Democratic Party - 18%), Ebert again felt solid ground under his feet. Thanks to these elections, everything that happened between November 9 and January 19 ceased to exist for him. All the revolutionary institutions that arose during this period, especially the workers' and soldiers' Soviets, lost in his eyes all right to exist, and he simply could not understand how they themselves did not see this. But, of course, they did not see this, and therefore, as much as he regretted, they had to be eliminated by force. This completely sincere, although extremely subjective position of Ebert became the cause of the civil war in Germany.

How firmly Ebert was convinced of this is shown by an almost grotesque example. The nominally highest revolutionary state body, which appointed, in particular, the government of "people's representatives", was the Central Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets, elected by the All-German Congress of Soviets in Berlin. This Central Council was a model of meekness and lack of initiative. It consisted only of representatives of the SPD, never offered even the slightest resistance to Ebert and actively helped him remove the representatives of the USPD from the government. After the election, he was ready to hand over his powers to the National Assembly. But even this Ebert did not allow him, saying that there was nothing more to transmit. Because now elected National Assembly, Ebert said, the Central Council should just keep quiet, pack up and disappear. Because of this, the first and only serious conflict arose between Ebert and the Central Council, which, having lost all power, eked out a ghostly existence for some time. This grotesque episode, which has no political significance, clarifies Ebert's political position: in his opinion, the elections to the National Assembly, which for its part soon elected him, Ebert, provisional Reich President, created a new legality, which was the successor to the old one that existed in October 1918. Everything between them is now, if not before, illegal. Moreover, the statement of this had a retroactive effect. The revolution was annulled in a legal sense. Now she had to graciously self-destruct in fact. The Workers' and Soldiers' Soviets were to disappear. Ebert sincerely believed that all this went without saying.

But the Soviets existed and naturally looked at things quite differently. For them, the revolution was not annulled, either legally or in fact. For them, it was still the only source of new legitimacy. “We can order the ‘plenipotentiaries of the people’ to leave, not they to us,” even the meek Central Council reasoned, and the local Soviets, in whose hands everywhere still held local power, were at first inclined to respond to Ebert’s demand with bitter laughter. They felt the support of the working masses. These masses were for the most part made up of demobilized soldiers who had not yet forgotten the war, and almost every one of them had a rifle at home. Immediately after the war, Germany had an abundance of weapons and ammunition. Who would have dared to order the victorious armed people to go home, like a group of schoolchildren after a stupid trick? Later, the chairman of the Leipzig Workers' Council, Kurt Geyer, wrote sadly and self-critically: "Possession of local power completely obscured the radical masses' understanding of the real balance of power in the country."

But not only the "radical masses", the Soviets themselves, including the moderate representatives of the SPD who participated in them, did not understand at all how it was possible to suddenly declare the revolution not to have taken place. Of course, now there was a National Assembly, elections for which were held by decision of the Congress of Soviets itself. But in taking such a decision, the congress did not even think of liquidating the revolution by doing so. On the contrary, in the eyes of the Soviets, the National Assembly owed its existence only to the decision of the Congress of Soviets on elections, which gave the assembly a legal character. He had very specific tasks: to adopt a constitution and legislate, to approve the budget, to control the activities of the government. But it was by no means intended to make it all-powerful, and even more so it could not annul the revolution. The soviets still considered themselves legitimate state organs, created by the revolution and existing side by side with it, just as before there were the authorities of the states and communities next to the Kaiser's Reichstag. After all, until November 1918 there was a parliament elected on the basis of general elections in a state that was a class state. So it should have remained now, and only instead of the nobles and the rich, the revolution made the ruling class of workers and soldiers. This is how the Soviets imagined the situation. The Soldiers' Soviets still claimed to exercise disciplinary power over the troops, and the Workers' Soviets still regarded themselves - by virtue of revolutionary law - as the decisive head of the state apparatus. And when this position began to be challenged, the question of power was raised.

This was expressed most clearly by Noske. On January 21, he stated at a cabinet meeting; “Government needs to be given credibility by creating the means of power. Within a week, twenty-two thousand troops were formed. This has changed somewhat

tone of conversation with the soldiers' Soviets. Previously, the soldiers' Soviets were a factor of power, but now this factor has become we. On the same day, Noske threatened representatives of the Soldiers' Council of the 7th Army Corps in Münster, who protested against the restoration of insignia in the army and recruitment into volunteer detachments: “You misunderstand the authority of your Soldiers' Council. In the coming days, we will make you understand this. Everything will be different! The government is not going to tolerate your actions and will intervene, as it has already done elsewhere.” The last phrase was clearly an allusion to the January events in Berlin and the murder of Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg.

And the government really soon "intervened" - first in Bremen, then in the Ruhr region, then in Thuringia, etc. In early February, the civil war gradually spread throughout Germany. The reasons for the intervention varied. In most cases they were directly military in nature; sabotage of recruitment into volunteer detachments, the refusal of the soldiers' Soviets to restore insignia and military salute (they referred to the decision of the All-German Congress of Soviets, which Ebert and Noske had practically canceled on January 19), sometimes strikes or unrest on the ground.

In reality, however, the talk was everywhere about one thing - about the existence of workers' and soldiers' Soviets, and thus about the legitimacy of the revolution. General Merker, the commander of the landjäger corps, which, at the behest of Noske, became the “conqueror of cities,” stated this quite frankly: “In the struggle of the government against the radical left, it was exclusively about maintaining political power. For the sake of this purely political goal, the troops were used as a means of power to stabilize domestic politics. However, the weakness of the government did not allow openly stating this. It was afraid to clearly define its position and admit that volunteer detachments serve to eliminate the power of the Soviets where it still existed. Ultimately, that was the only thing that mattered. The government found a way out of the situation by pretending that the reason for the intervention was military affairs. I didn't like this dishonesty. I would feel more confident in front of the leaders of the workers if I could directly tell them: "My arrival means a struggle against the power of the Soviets, to which you aspire, and against the rule of the armed proletariat."

Merker was an extremely conservative, even reactionary officer, but an old-school officer, accustomed to discipline and obedience, and his landjäger corps, at least in the civil war of 1919, was in a sense loyal and reliable towards the government. The same cannot be said of most of the other volunteer detachments that were formed in a feverish haste during the months of the civil war. By its end, there were sixty-eight official volunteer units, which, according to Noske, consisted of almost four hundred thousand people. Each of the fighters took an oath of allegiance to his commander, that is, according to Noske, almost the same ritual was observed, "as in the time of Wallenstein." The most remarkable thing is that neither Ebert nor Noske saw anything special in this, in any case, they did not find any reason for concern. Even more surprising than the merciless cruelty with which they suppressed the revolutionaries who brought them to power is the myopia and carelessness with which they armed their mortal enemies from the right and accustomed them to the taste of blood.

After all, from the very beginning there could not be the slightest doubt about the political views of the overwhelming majority of the commanders of these volunteer detachments and their soldiers. “It would be an extreme exaggeration,” wrote the then lieutenant of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division von Ertzen, “to say that the officers who were in the Eden Hotel felt sympathy for members of the government of that time.” This would indeed be an exaggeration. So, Colonel Reinhard - later the commander of this division, who gained fame as the "liberator" or, rather, the executioner of Berlin, - back in the Christmas days of 1918, spoke of the "Social Democratic Witches' Sabbath", and later, in an address to his troops, he called the government in whose service they were, "rabble." On January 21, 1919, the commander of the Steel Detachment, Captain Gengler, wrote in his diary about the Ebert government: “The day will come when I will settle accounts with this government and tear off the mask from all this miserable, vile pack.” Lieutenant Colonel Heinz, another well-known commander of the volunteer detachment, declared a couple of months later: “This state, born of rebellion, will always be our enemy, no matter who will lead it and what constitution will be adopted ... For an empire! For the people! War on the government! Death to the Democratic Republic!” And von Heidebreck, then the commander of the Werewolf volunteer detachment, and then one of the top leaders of the SA and, in the end, shot by Hitler together with his boss Rem on June 30, 1934, said: “War to the state of Weimar and Versailles! War daily and by any means! As much as I love Germany, so much I hate the Republic of November 9!”

So thought the commanders of those 400,000 men who were armed and sent against the workers Ebert and Noske, to whom they entrusted the defense of the bourgeois republic, as well as their own destiny. As for Noske, who, in fact, had a lot in common with them and during the next year sometimes toyed with the idea of ​​becoming a dictator with their help, this is still understandable to some extent. As for Ebert, he showed amazing narrow-mindedness and stupidity. After all, Ebert dreamed not of a state of the SS, but of a bourgeois-parliamentary democracy, the joint rule of the Social Democrats and the middle bourgeoisie, of calm, order and decency, of a state of the middle strata, in which the interests of the workers would also be taken into account. And in order to create it, he unleashed a wild pack on the workers, which even then had almost all the features of the future SA and SS cutthroats, many of whom later personally played a role in Hitler's seizure of power. In addition to Heidebreck, in the chronicle of the civil war of 1919, for example, the names of Seldte and von Epp already appear, of which one later became a minister in Hitler's government, and the other - his governor in Bavaria.

It is quite obvious that Ebert could not comprehend the essence of these precursors of Nazism. He saw to his right only polite, cultured, wealthy people, and he never had any other goal than to ensure that both he and his SPD were recognized by these people as equal partners capable of joint government. Hasn't this goal been achieved since October 1918? Didn't Ludendorff himself finally recognize and even order (although, unfortunately, only in the hour of defeat) to carry out parliamentarization with the participation of Social Democrats in the government, which Ebert was striving for throughout the war? That this could be a trap never entered Ebert's mind, nor did he think that the revolution that strengthened the rear of the October government in November was his only chance to break out of this trap. He saw only an honorary commission to become the savior of the bourgeois state in the hour of trouble. In his soul he always remained believing in this commission and did not expect anything from the right except gratitude. The only enemies on the right, as he believed, there could be monarchists (he, unfortunately, could no longer save the monarchy), but the fighters of volunteer detachments were by no means monarchists. What they aspired to, fought for and even killed was anything but a monarchy! It was something that only later was put into words, and it was done by a man who was then still a petty spy of the Bavarian Reichswehr in Munich.

His spirit, which later found its expression in concentration camps and death squads, already in 1919 took possession, not yet being clearly expressed, of the troops of the counter-revolution, which Ebert called for and led by Noske. The revolution of 1918 was good-natured, the counter-revolution was cruel. It can be admitted that she had to fight for her victory, which the revolution did not need, and that the other side also allowed instances of cruelty and rudeness, without which not a single civil war can do. But two things stand out. Almost everywhere, the disciplined and well-armed government troops from the very beginning far outnumbered the hastily recruited and armed only with rifles of the workers' detachments of the local Soviets, and therefore already in the battles the losses were very unequal. In addition, the real horror - field trials, mass executions without trial, torture and beatings - as a rule, began after the victory of government troops, when they had nothing to fear and could rage without interference. In many German cities, terrible things were happening at that time, although not a single history textbook reports this.

True, the counter-revolution was not a horror for everyone, some saw salvation and deliverance in it. If fear or hidden fury reigned in the working-class quarters of the cities captured by volunteer detachments, there was not a soul on the streets occupied with battle, and officers who appeared alone in the “occupied territory” risked being attacked and lynched, then in areas where the bourgeoisie lived, The "liberators" were greeted with gratitude and delight: beer, chocolate, cigarettes, girls blowing kisses, and children waving black-white-red flags. This civil war, like other civil wars, was a class war. The originality consisted only in the fact that the war against the working class in this case led by a social democratic government.

Like any civil war, this war, as it unfolded, caused an escalation of terror. At first, in Bremen and Central Germany, everything was still relatively tolerable. In the Ruhr area, where wild fighting continued for several weeks after the end of the main fighting in February, many ugly episodes had already taken place. A terrible thing happened in Berlin, where in March Noske's troops under the command of Colonel Reinhard went on the offensive, with a double task in mind: to seize the working-class quarters in the east and north of the city, which had not reached the hands in January, and to disarm the unreliable parts of the Berlin garrison participating in November in the revolution. Here, first of all, it was about the People's Marine Division. The monstrous episode from this chapter of the revolution has entered all history textbooks. When the sailors of the People's Naval Division came on call and without weapons to the administrative building on Fransiesischestrasse to receive their leave documents and the due monetary allowance (in the People's Naval Division the question of salary always arose in one form or another), thirty of them without any reason or warning were seized, taken out into the yard, put against the wall and shot.

But these thirty sailors were only a fraction of those who were executed in Berlin. Noske, of course, not exaggerating, believes that there were "about one thousand two hundred." He himself issued a ruthless order: "Everyone who is detained with a weapon in his hands in the fight against government troops must be immediately shot." Colonel Reinhard gave this order an even broader interpretation: “All the inhabitants of the houses from which the shooting was carried out at 174

troops must be taken out into the streets, whether they plead guilty or not. In their absence, searches must be carried out in the houses. Suspicious individuals found in possession of weapons are to be shot.” One must imagine the overcrowded workers' barracks in the east of Berlin. There is evidence that, in accordance with this order, took place on March 11, 12 and 13, 1919, on the streets in the Alexanderplatz and Berlin-Lichtenberg districts, which are better left unsaid.

Already during the March battles in Berlin, in some places, despair led to hopeless resistance with a degree of bitterness that had not previously been encountered in the course of the civil war in Germany. But the March battles in Berlin were not yet the apogee of this bloody war. Munich became a month later.