Chapter IV: Part 4

Scarcely had he finished speaking when, as if by magic, a tremendous tumult arose. Near the spot where the doctor and his friends had been standing the crowds surged back and forth. The great multitudes in the palace grounds had the appearance of an immense sea whose surface was every inch covered with human heads, those of men and women. The children became terrified. The shouts of the grown-ups and the terrified shrieks of the children added vehemence to the scene. The next moment I see Comrade Liebknecht pulled down from the stand. His friends also follow. Then I see fists raised. I suddenly discover that the jostling of the crowds about me has carried me further away from the spot where a riot is in progress. I again elbow my way toward where the doctor and his companions have been pulled down from the stand. I had made some progress when suddenly I find myself being swept backward by a huge human wave.

In spite of my wish to see what is going on behind me I am being carried away further and further. Several hundred thousand panic-stricken souls are rushing towards the streets and avenues that lead to the grounds. The scene is frightful. Every one is shouting. I steal a glimpse of the spot which is now the center of the sudden panic. I gasp with fright. I see numberless mounted soldiers with large black whips in their hands lashing the crowds. Their mounts are so close to the struggling and frightened men and women, yea, even children, that it is a miracle that thousands are not pinned to the ground. I cannot tell whether they are killed or whether they fainted. But there are many of them. I myself was forced to step over several persons. I tried to lift up a body, but in the next moment I was carried away....

May Day evening. Twenty-five or thirty meet secretly at the home of a comrade in ---- street. We all know what the report is. Herr Doctor is arrested. We are all sad, very sad. We have met to exchange views as to what step to take next. Every one is laboring with heavy thoughts within himself. The silence is sickening. With the exception of four the men who come together to exchange views are all soldiers in the active army. Not all of them are privates. We have spent the entire night, sometimes in heavy silence and again in deliberation. It is decided that we ---- ---- ----. Are the German workingmen thinking? Their present thoughts are tragic. They hurt.

LIEBKNECHT'S REPLY TO HIS JUDGES

While in prison Dr. Liebknecht sent two letters to the military court handling his case, in which he explained his position. It was Dr. Liebknecht's hope that these letters would be read to the Reichstag and in that way reach the German people. But this was not the case. The letters were put before the Parliamentary Committee, which investigated Liebknecht's case and on whose recommendation the Reichstag, by a vote of 229 to 111, refused to ask for his release. A copy of one of these letters was smuggled out of prison and sent out of Germany.

Berlin, May 3rd, 1916. _To the Royal Military Court, Berlin:_

In the investigation of the case against me, the records of remarks need the following elucidation:

I. The German Government is in its social and historical character an instrument for the crushing down and exploitation of the laboring classes; at home and abroad it serves the interests of junkerism, of capitalism, and of imperialism.

The German Government is a reckless champion of expansion in world politics, the most ardent promoter in the competition of armaments, and accordingly one of the most powerful influences in developing the causes of the present war.

In partnership with the Austrian Government the German Government contrived to bring about this war and so burdened itself with the greatest responsibility for the immediate outbreak of the war.

The German Government started the war under cover of deception practiced upon the common people and even upon the Reichstag (compare, among other things, the concealment of the ultimatum to Belgium, the make-up of the German White Book, the elimination of the Czar's dispatch of July 29, 1914), and it tries by reprehensible means to keep up the war spirit among the people.

It carries on the war with methods that, judged even by standards hitherto conventional, are monstrous. The invasion of Belgium and Luxemburg, poisonous gases, which in the meantime have become of common use by all the belligerents, and then look at the Zeppelin bombs, which outdo everything and which are intended to kill all that live, combatants or non-combatants, within a wide region; submarine commerce warfare; the torpedoing of the _Lusitania_, etc.; the system of hostages and forced contributions at the beginning, especially in Belgium; the systematic entrapping of Ukrainian, Georgian, Baltic Provincials, Polish, Irish, Mohammedan, and other prisoners of war in the German prison camps for the purpose of having them do treasonable war service and treasonable spying for the Central Powers; Under-Secretary Zimmerman's agreement with Sir Roger Casement in December, 1914, regarding the organization, equipment, and training in the German prison camps of the "Irish Brigade," composed of captured British soldiers; the attempts by means of threats of forcible interment to compel Christians of a hostile nationality found in Germany to do treasonable war service against their countries, and so forth. (Necessity knows no law!)

The German Government has, through the establishment of martial law, enormously increased the political lawlessness and economic exploitations of the people; it refuses all serious political and social reforms, while at the same time it tries to hold the people docile for the imperialistic war policy, by means of rhetorical phrases about equal rights accorded to all parties, about alleged discontinuation of discriminations in social and political matters, about an alleged readjustment and new direction of political matters, and so on.

The German Government because of its consideration for agrarian and capitalists' interests has completely failed to care for the economic welfare of the people during the war, to guard against misery and the practice of revolting extortion upon the people.

The German Government is still holding fast to its war aims and so constitutes the chief obstacle in the way of immediate peace negotiations upon the basis of renunciation of annexations and oppressions of all sorts: Through the maintenance--in itself illegal--of martial law (censorship, etc.) it prevents the public from learning unpleasant facts and prevents Socialist criticism of its measures. The German Government thereby reveals its system of seeming legality and sham popularity as a system of actual force, of genuine hostility to the people and bad faith as regards the masses.

The cry of "Down with the Government!" is meant to brand this entire policy of the Government as fatal to the masses of the people.

This cry also indicates that it is the duty of every representative of the welfare of the proletariat to wage a struggle of the most strenuous character--the class struggle--against the Government.

II. The present war is not a war for the defense of the national integrity, not for the liberation of oppressed peoples, not for the welfare of the masses.

From the standpoint of the proletariat this war only signifies the most extreme concentration and extension of political suppression, of economic exploitation, and of military slaughtering of the working-class body and soul for the benefit of capitalism and of absolutism.

To all this the working-class of all countries can give but one answer: a harder struggle, the international class struggle against the capitalist Governments and the ruling classes of all countries for the abolition of all oppression and exploitation by the institution of a peace conceived in the Socialist spirit. In this class struggle the Socialist, whose Fatherland is the International, finds included the defense of everything that he, as a Socialist, is bound to defend. The cry of "Down with war" signifies that I thoroughly condemn and oppose the present war because of its historical nature, because of its general social causes and specific way in which it originated (developed), and because of the way it is being carried on and the objects for which it is being waged. That cry signifies that it is the duty of every representative of proletarian interests to take part in the international class struggle for the purpose of ending the war.

III. As a Socialist I am fundamentally opposed to the existing military system as well as of this war, and I always supported with all my power the fight against Militarism as an especially important task and a matter of life and death for the working-class of all countries. (Compare my book "Militarism" and my reports to the International Young People's Conferences at Stuttgart, 1907, and Copenhagen, 1910.) The war demands that we carry on the struggle against Militarism with redoubled energy.

IV. Since 1889 May 1st has been consecrated to manifestations and propaganda in favor of the great basic principles of Socialism, against all exploitation, oppression, and violence; dedicated to propaganda for the solidarity of workers of all countries--a solidarity which the war has not abolished, but strengthened--against the workers' fratricidal strife, for peace and against war.

During the war the manifestation and propaganda of these principles is a doubly sacred duty imposed upon every Socialist.

V. The policy advocated by me was outlined in the resolution adopted by the International Socialist Congress held in Stuttgart (1907), which pledged Socialists of all countries--after they should have failed to prevent a war--to work with all their energies towards its quick ending, and to take advantage of the conditions created by the war for hastening the abolition of the capitalist order of society.

This Socialist policy is meant to be international, even in its ultimate consequences. It imposes upon the Socialists of other countries the same obligation with reference to their Governments and ruling classes that I with others in Germany followed against the Government and ruling classes of Germany.

This Socialist policy has an international effect, by spreading reciprocal encouragement from nation to nation; it promotes the international class struggle against war.

Since the beginning of the war I, together with others, have defended in every possible way and upheld in the most public manner this Socialist policy, and besides, so far as possible, have entered into connections with those who shared my sentiments in other countries.

(I may mention, for example, my journey to Belgium and Holland in September, 1914; my Christmas letter in 1914 to the Labor Leader; the International Socialist Meetings in Switzerland, in which, I regret to say, I was unable to participate personally, being prevented by superior powers, etc.)

VI. This policy to which, cost it what it may, I shall hold fast, is not mine alone, but it is also the policy of an ever-increasing proportion of the people in Germany and of the other belligerent and neutral States. It will soon become, as I hope--and to this end I am resolved to toil on--the policy of the working-class of all countries, which will then possess the power to break the imperialistic will of the ruling classes, and to shape as may seem best the mutual relations and conditions of the people for the benefit of all mankind.

KARL LIEBKNECHT, _Armierungssoldat_.

LIEBKNECHT'S TRIAL AND RELEASE

On June 28th, 1916, Karl Liebknecht was sentenced at secret trial to thirty months' penal servitude. When the public prosecutor asked for this secrecy, Liebknecht exclaimed:

"It is cowardice on your part, gentlemen. Yes, I repeat, that you are cowards if you close these doors."

Nevertheless, the court decided to exclude the public, upon which Liebknecht cried to his wife and Rosa Luxemburg, in the audience, "Leave this comedy, where everything, including even the decision, has been prepared beforehand."

Following the announcement of the sentence given Liebknecht, the Potsdamerplatz in Berlin was the scene of a serious outbreak.

The next day (according to reports from Switzerland) strikes of protest against the Liebknecht case took place in Berlin and some 55,000 persons were involved in them. In other cities strikes and demonstrations of protest also took place.

An appeal was taken but resulted only in an increase in the sentence to four years' and one month's imprisonment at hard labor. Furthermore, he was deprived of all his civil rights for a period of six years after he should have served his term.

[Associated Press Dispatch]

PARIS, October 25.--An enormous crowd assembled before the Reichstag building in Berlin yesterday, calling for the abdication of Emperor William and the formation of a republic, according to a special dispatch from Zurich to _L'Information_.

Dr. Karl Liebknecht, the Socialist leader who has just been released from prison, was applauded frantically. He was compelled to enter a carriage filled with flowers from which he made a speech declaring that the time of the people had arrived.

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