Wilhelm Liebknecht

German politician

• Born: March 29, 1826
• Birthplace: Giessen, Hesse-Darmstadt (now in Germany)
• Died: August 7, 1900
• Place of death: Berlin, Germany

Liebknecht was a founding member of the German Social Democratic Party and an extreme critic of authoritarian government in Germany. He was a delegate to the German Reichstag and editor of the Social Democratic Party newspaper Vorwärts. His most important contribution was an effort to promote the ideals of democracy in the nineteenth century European socialist movement.

Early Life

Wilhelm Liebknecht (LEEP-k-nehkt) was the son of a government registrar, and his family was considered middle class by the standards of the early nineteenth century. One of three surviving children, Liebknecht benefited from his father’s study of post-Napoleonic Enlightenment thought, and from an early age he was interested in social justice. By December, 1832, however, both of his parents were dead and the six-year-old orphan was reared by Karl Osswald, a theologian, who had been a close friend of the family.

By the time Liebknecht had reached his tenth birthday, what was left of his father’s estate had disappeared. Although the sudden deaths of his parents and the descent into poverty must have made a lasting impression on him, Liebknecht seldom wrote of his childhood. His only lasting memories were of his uncle, the Reverend Friedrich Ludwig Weidig, a liberal democrat and author of fiery revolutionary tracts. Repeatedly jailed for his antimonarchist writings, in February, 1837, Weidig was apparently murdered in prison in Darmstadt. Although Liebknecht rarely referred to his uncle’s death, evidence suggests that at this time he began to identify the authoritarian state as the source of his own bereavement and the problems of society.

Although reduced in circumstances, Liebknecht was still able to attend school, and it was education rather than hardship that pushed him in the direction of radical politics. In the autumn of 1845, Liebknecht left for Berlin to enroll at the university. Berlin was already an industrial city with a population approaching half a million, and the condition of the city’s industrial workers, who were forced to live in appalling slums and to suffer brutal working conditions, made an instant impression on the young student.

Indeed, Liebknecht’s course of study at the university perfectly complemented his introduction to working-class life. His major interests lay in philosophy and economics, and he read avidly in the works of the French socialist Claude Henri de Saint-Simon. As Liebknecht himself admitted, however, his real grounding in socialist thought began with his reading of Friedrich Engels’s Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England (1848; The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 , 1887). This work persuaded Liebknecht to join the struggle against capitalism, and he cut his education short to join the liberal-democratic revolutions of 1848. The collapse of the revolutionary movement in 1849 forced Liebknecht to flee Germany.

Life’s Work

Liebknecht’s post-1848 travels took him to Switzerland and then to Great Britain. During his migration, he became acquainted with both Karl Marx and Engels. In 1850, he joined the Union of Communists and became a dedicated exponent of socialist political and economic theory. A proclamation of amnesty permitted Liebknecht to return to Berlin in 1862. He worked as a correspondent for various democratically oriented German and foreign newspapers and became a founding member, along with Ferdinand Lassalle , of the General German Workers’ Association, an organization that favored workers’ cooperatives financially supported by the state, universal suffrage, and a program of social legislation regulating wages and hours. In 1869, however, Liebknecht helped to create a new workers’ party, the German Social Democratic Labor Party, a more radical organization that emphasized the class struggle and that demanded the abolition of class privileges in Prussia.

During the late 1860’s, the two rival groups became parliamentary parties and sent representatives to the assembly of the North German Confederation, which had been created following the Prussian defeat of Austria in 1866. Liebknecht served as a Social Democratic delegate from 1867 to 1870 and vigorously attacked the reactionary policies of the Prussian Junker class and denounced Prussian militarism. Along with August Bebel, Liebknecht opposed the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, fought against the annexationist plans of the Prussian government, and appealed for working-class solidarity with the Paris Commune of 1871. For his opposition to Germany’s annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, Liebknecht was brought to trial in 1872 for treason against the state and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.

The Franco-Prussian War led to increased cooperation between the Social Democrats and Lassalle’s Workers’ Association. Many factional disputes disappeared with the unification of Germany and, by 1875, the two socialist parties resolved to join forces against capitalism and Prussian militarism. At the Socialist Congress at Gotha in May, 1875, a new German Social Democratic Labor Party was founded, and Liebknecht became one of the most influential party leaders, along with Lassalle and Bebel.

The Gotha Program reflected Liebknecht’s democratic tendencies and was far from a radical socialist agenda. The party program called for such socialist measures as the abolition of “wage slavery” through the establishment of state-supported workers’ cooperatives, but it also advocated many commonly held liberal-democratic policies, including universal suffrage, the secret ballot, guaranteed civil liberties, free public education, freedom of speech and assembly, and government-mandated social legislation. The republican nature of the Gotha Program engendered criticism from more doctrinaire socialists, including Marx. In 1875, Marx published his Randglossen zum Gothaer Partei Program(1875; Critique of the Gotha Program , 1938), a scathing ideological attack on the German Social Democrats. Nevertheless, Liebknecht repudiated Marx’s denunciation, and the new party achieved impressive electoral gains in 1877. The party’s moderate-democratic approach allowed it to increase its popular vote by 40 percent and helped it to capture twelve seats in the German Reichstag.

Following the Gotha meeting, however, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck took steps to prevent any further growth of socialism in Germany. As a result of Liebknecht’s and other socialist leaders’ opposition to Prussian policies during the Franco-Prussian War, Bismarck was inclined to regard all Social Democrats as enemies of the state. Therefore, in 1878, Bismarck persuaded the Reichstag to pass a series of antisocialist laws that suppressed all political and economic associations of the German socialists. Technically the German Social Democratic Party was not illegal, but party effectiveness was practically destroyed by curtailments in electoral funding and the harassment of party leaders. Liebknecht retained his democratic philosophy during this period and helped to retain party unity until the antisocialist legislation lapsed in 1890.

In 1890, Liebknecht became chief editor of Vorwärts , the central organ of the Social Democratic Party. During this period, and until his death in 1900, Liebknecht’s socialist beliefs centered on the issue of the legitimacy of parliamentary activity in the context of the class struggle against capitalism and militarism. Liebknecht’s position held that the workers’ interests would be more effectively served by sending deputies to the Reichstag who would use the democratic system to achieve social, political, and economic reform. Liebknecht, Bebel, and other moderates helped mold the German Social Democratic movement into a responsible parliamentary party, defending workers’ interests and political liberalism.

Liebknecht was especially responsible for formulating specific policies aimed at promoting social legislation, reducing the military budget, and eliminating economic protectionism. By the late 1890’s, however, Liebknecht’s position as party leader had diminished, largely as a result of his inexpert handling of intraparty strife. On the morning of August 7, 1900, Liebknecht suffered a fatal stroke while working at his office in Berlin. His leadership of the German Social Democrats fell to Bebel, Karl Kautsky, and Eduard Bernstein, but Liebknecht was eulogized as one who had helped to elevate a struggling socialist faction into the world’s largest and most effective socialist party.

Significance

Wilhelm Liebknecht’s achievement was to help to establish the world’s first mass-based Marxist political party. He was a nineteenth century social democrat whose political philosophy was formed in the nexus of liberal democracy, Marxism, and nationalism. He was noted as being tolerant, humanitarian, and democratic. Although he did not excel as a statesman or political revolutionary, he was a master at political organization. His advocacy of revolutionary change was tempered with his abjuration of violence. He encouraged open discussion within his party, and he defended the right to hold dissenting viewpoints. In reaching decisions, he preferred persuasion and open voting to intimidation and deference to an elite party leadership.

Liebknecht rejected any form of conspiratorial action by a minority and based his socialism on the basic premise of mass participation. Liebknecht argued that the basic tool of working-class revolution remained education. Voluntary and enlightened mass participation in the revolutionary process was Liebknecht’s aim. For him, the manipulative dictatorship of the proletariat always remained an incongruous part of Marxism. While most nineteenth century socialist movements indulged in sectarian debates and self-defeating intraparty rivalries, the German Social Democrats, largely as a result of Liebknecht’s efforts, crystallized the socialist movement and forestalled party schism until 1917. Overall, Liebknecht’s leadership molded the German socialists into a respected and effective workers’ party and ultimately inspired the creation of modern European social democracy.

Bibliography

Braunthal, Julius. History of the International. Translated by Henry Collins and Kenneth Mitchell. 2 vols. New York: Praeger, 1976. This standard work on the Socialist International includes a discussion of Liebknecht’s efforts in attracting German workers’ attention to the First International. Places Liebknecht in the context of the early days of European socialism.

Dominick, Raymond H., III. Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Founding of the German Social Democratic Party. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Dominick provides the standard biography of Liebknecht. His focus is on the philosophical struggle inherent in the founding of the German Social Democratic Party. He attributes to Liebknecht the party’s emphasis on participatory democracy. Liebknecht is given credit for retaining party unity in the face of Prussian repression and ideological disputes within European socialism.

Hall, Alex. Scandal, Sensation, and Social Democracy: The SPD Press and Wilhelmine Germany, 1890-1914. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1977. The author examines in detail the workings of such major Social Democratic organs as Vorwärts and provides a detailed discussion of Liebknecht’s direction of the paper during the 1890’s. Liebknecht is given credit for maintaining his democratic principles in the face of severe criticism from both the government and his own party’s radical elements.

Lidtke, Vernon L. The Outlawed Party: Social Democracy in Germany, 1878-1890. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966. This study is devoted largely to the struggle of the German Social Democratic Party during the period of Bismarck’s antisocialist laws. Early chapters, however, deal in detail with Liebknecht’s role in the founding of the party. The author emphasizes the impact of Liebknecht’s liberalism in the formulation of party ideology.

Mukherjee, Subrata, and Sushila Ramaswamy, eds. Wilhlem Liebknecht, His Thoughts and Works. New Delhi: Deep & Deep, 1998. Contains Liebknecht’s writings with some commentaries and a biographical sketch.

Pelz, William, ed. Wilhelm Liebknecht and German Social Collections: A Documentary History. Translated by Erich Hahn. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994. Presents Liebknecht through a sampling of his most renowned work. Whenever possible, the writings are included unedited, and each offering is preceded by an introduction placing the piece in context. Also included are essays by colleagues and those who knew Liebknecht personally.

Roth, Guenther. The Social Democrats in Imperial Germany: A Study in Working-Class Isolation and National Integration. Totowa, N.J.: Bedminster Press, 1963. This work is basically a sociological view of the integration of the German working class into German society. The author attacks party leaders, including Liebknecht, for denying strict Marxism in favor of watered-down liberalism. Credit is given, however, for Liebknecht’s criticism of militarism and other evils of Prussian authoritarianism.