Ode to the martyrs : Karl Liebknecht

"Had there been enough Karl Liebknechts, the future of Germany and of the world might have
been different." (Sumner Welles, official in FDR administration in 'Time for Decision')

Four years of slaughter1

Maintained the relentless struggle for peace2
Forces for this noble cause - to fight the good fight to stop the toilers to fight and suffer--
few at first, was he able to muster
As the ‘Great’ powers fought over their spoils, after they divided the world apiece

Whence the world was caught in this frenzy

Chauvinism swept all over
There arose a name
Whomst rejected this conflict, not of the nation, but Krupp’s plunder3

His name was Karl Liebknecht

Steadfast to his principles - better than the Hohenzollerns4 maintained the words of his
bloodline5
Both made the promise for peace6
One did not cease ; one, representative of imperialism as they were, sold it on lease
As held the former their struggle for such with consistency ; the latter to prove itself not so
benign.
Labor’s own barrister , he kept the consistent struggle against imperialism, persistent against
militarism

1 Referring to WW 1, which was characterised by the revolutionary sections of SPD as an “imperialist war
and a “plot to redivide the world -- as evident from the Junius pamphlet
2 The supporters of WW1 within the SPD formed a majority and the principled fighters against
imperialism were isolated at the beginning
3 The Krupps were infamous armaments dealers / war-profiteers and steel tycoons, later-to-be
enthusiastic supporters of Hitler and indicted after WW2 of exploiting slave labor to boost the Nazi regime
4 The ruling Prussian dynasty (until the 1918 revolution) which is credited with uniting Germany through
“a revolution from above”, albeit denying a democratic unification to the German peoples
5 No worries, this doesn’t mean Liebknecht wanted to start his own monarchy. His father, Wilhelm
Liebknecht was the co-founder of SPD
6 Like all other imperialists fighting WW1, the German warmongers usually did make a claim to stand for
peace, Examples include a 1916 reichstag meeting where the chancellor alleged that his opponents are
solely responsible for war
Whom was himself brought up in the heat of predatory Prussian wars
A known organizer, a tactful agitator
Had refuted ,countered militarist propaganda in schools , in all society – for years by then
Saw this catastrophe unfold, and rose to his duty

After years of “peaceful developments”7,

- of stenching the peoples’ wealth dry, of militarisation, of stocking armaments
Ran the old Prussian dictum , “War is a continuation of politics by other means”
Of which this conflict provides best illustration.
To speak further, this war is the very epitome
Of politics ,of

We heard over, the voices of the social-traitors8,

“Rest we don’t partake - in the bloodfest,
The existence of our nation shall be at stake.”9
And hence the continuation of co-operation with the war-profiteering tycoons, with junker
usurers.
They left the historic mission of the workers’ party - to a mere farce

They announced that with the grandeur of Wilhelmine and Hapsburg annexations
Came our general prosperity
The Spartacists declared that we must know better
That there lay no glory in a possible victory in this inglorious, gory war
That our common cause lay not with the present owners, whom are to the further progress but a
fetter
This is a question of life and death

They rang, regurgitated,reiterated - the regal ruling class jingoes

“There are no parties, but the German nation”
Deluding the masses away from their immediate woes
As the blockade shortages imposed threats of starvation

7 A common way contemporary Western historiography and liberal intellectuals at the time saw the pre-
war situation - despite such a conclusion resting on eurocentrism, the ignorance of several colonial wars,
events in the decaying Ottoman and Hapsburg empires and the effective (violent) division of the rest of
the world by the entente as best illuminated upon here
8 This reference is to the right-wing leaders of SPD whom betrayed the historic mission of the SPD for a
Burgfriedenspolitik
9 One of the justifications the war-mongering editors, - best documented in the Junius Pamphlet
Declared he , “The main enemy is at home,”10
To the present system, we yield not a concession, not a man not a cent11
The League leaked every little secret to break the casted spells of jingoism

“Arise ye the toilers from the factories, from the trenches

For this war is not yours…
Down with the monarchy, the ruling classes and those who are our brothers in words, in
deeds their henches!”
“We must refrain from this fratricide
To enslave a nation for them is to forge our own chains
Let’s redeem ourselves from the bloodstains, of their acts of genocide12
By fighting back reaction, show them that these losses shall not go in vain ;
We will move our nation into another lane - The lane of socialism, peace and progress!”

Each person maimed is the death of a future

This inhuman war shall inflict a lasting suture

“They hoot the cry of our national liberation and self-determination

But we must know they vulgarise this slogan, cause its utter falsification
For we know that a nation that enslaves another forges it own chains13
To support an attack on another nation, shows in our experience, the self-imposition of the
worst tyranny…”
They call us to carry the white man’s burden
We know we really mean them just massacre

The black hundredists we produce there hit back hard

Hit hard- hard blows whose stings must remind
Lest we ignore our fellow toilers whom experience
A chain upon another , harder together they bind
The misery of being dispossessed of a nation
The gendarmes we create thence, help maintain the robbery of all labor value
Our struggle is one and common

We reject the treaties of secret diplomacy

10 Possibly the most popular Spartacist slogan, named after an anti-war pamphlet
11 Namesake after Liebknecht’s 1916 pamplet condemning the state of party politics
12 This isn’t merely referring to the entire war, but to genocides of Armenians (pointed out by Liebknecht
in the Reichstag) , Moors and Croats that happened from both the power blocs
13 This is the fundamental basis of the Marxist approach to
And the ever-lulling, blinding sands of nationalism and militarism it flings at the popular masses’
eyes
We reject ,we treat the division and dismemberment of nations with the highest order of disdain
Done easily on scraps of paper, producing the subject nations’ greatest pain

For defending the peace idea, they called him a troublemaker, a traitor
He considered it his honor to betray the cause of the kriegsminister’s , of the war profiteers
To reject many a Burgfrieden ; for to accept meant; to prolong the maelstrom of mass murder
The klassenkampf has not halted
But this is the general offensive
On part of capital against labour
Has the former shed any concession, have they relinquished their powers and privileges

His voice, though lone14, sounded so resounding -of a will so resolute

They’d to stamp it out, along with the last pretence for Kultur, of democracy
And substitute it for a state of siege
Remained only the capitulators, further strengthened the autocracy
But they couldn’t stop the eastern revolutionary breeze15

The kaiserly intrigues of the adventure, the dreams of victory in the Weltkrieg bite the dust
His blood-sullied throne shakes
Bending in order not to break, he abdicates
Dull defeats have driven, has awoken the masses from slumber
Now that they have awoken, none could perfectly how far they shall go
The depredation and misery have struck hard, broken old bonds

The traitors delay the proclamation of the power of the people

In the name of a republic they form a government a six
Acting and answering to the victors and the same war-loving gentry

14 Liebknecht was the only person in the Reichstag to defy party discipline and refuse to vote in favor of
war credits
“If defending the peace idea, if t he proclamation of the inter .
national proletariat class struggle against war, is t reason, then it
is an honour to be reproached as a traitor.”
15 Reference to the Russian revolutions of 1917 - what is mentioned in the following lines is the events of
the November revolution which brought down the monarchy, under the influence of the news of Russia
In alien lands on the verge of entering a new age, they send their sentry
Rule over the people

In the bloody January, armed mercenaries of capital, commit his murder

For they thought with him , his ideal they could bury
Once again were heard their hallowing howls : “Spartacus Smashed!”16
Rinse again their claim to socialism, not in a fashion any awry
They have thrown firebrands to the flame that shall, eventually, tower above them
The day shall come when they will be condemned,cursed further and wider

The disgust of the ever-so-indifferent audience turns against an action so vile

This tragedy makes us vow , that such a sacrifice shall not go futile
The great cause and conviction
We shall not leave the masses servile

“Order prevails in Berlin!”17

So familiar is this claim – from them, the Bonapartist18 criminals
Not unlike every ruling class appeal to their law and order
Whither, whither your fragile order - a house of cards
Built on, but mere sand
Today the “vestiges” of the old order you refuse to disband , support you
Tomorrow they push for further reaction

Another historical epoch demonstrates

All paths narrow to but two : Socialism or Barbarism
Bourgeois society is at crossroads
Its time has been in passing, for it has proved itself moribund
Descending into further carnage the longer it is allowed to decay

The historical role of Karl Liebknecht shall be understood

Not in the obituaries of liberals fawning at the steadfast commitment to an ideal
But in the sun of that achieved , not ideal but practicality, of socialism
For we think ahead ; not in the surreal

16 This is to echo Liebknecht’s last article “Inspite of all” before his brutal execution by the regime’s
mercenary Freikorps
17 This is to echo Luxemburg’s last article “Order Prevails in Berlin” before she was murdered as well
18 “Bonapartist” in this context means not literally a supporter of the French monarchist bloodline, but an
internal bureaucratic betrayer of the revolution, as the first Napoleon buried the revolution by declaring
himself a monarch. In contrast, consistent revolutionaries call themselves “Jacobins/Jacobites”
In the latter days, many an imposter shall try to reclaim for themselves, hence blunt his legacy
For such has been the fate of many a fallen revolutionary comrade
The true historical role of Liebknecht shall not be assessed by the words of today’s apostasy
But shall be rehabilitated truly in the coming ages of social revolution
“…Our ship sails a straight course , our program lives, it shall rule the world of the liberated
mankind”
IN SPITE OF ALL!

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Crisis of German Social Democracy, Rosa Luxemburg
Militarism and Anti-Militarism, Karl Liebknecht
Order Prevails in Berlin,Rosa Luxemburg
Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International, VI Lenin
PLANS
● Include whole period from the prelude of WW1 to the death of Liebknecht

● Enter some pictures to break what is going to be a long ballad

● Include section on national self-determination, German East Africa