Liebknecht Luxemburg Memorial Number The Revolutionary Age Chronicle and Interpretation of Events in Europe Vol. I, No. 16 Saturday, February 1, 1919 Price Cents They are not Dead, Comrades!
TELuxemburg toy hírekings of the old regime, and our cannot still the comrades.
supreme No our courage. We HE assassination of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa By Louis Fraina ate, petty bourgeois Socialism, actual or potential betrayer of our revolutionary cause. is dominant. It characteristic of the regime, was a brutal act. use the sword shall perish by the sword. What does is, officially at least, dominant in our own country, in But the American pres which hysterically con Gov say? Force the most will be party.
doms the terror in Russia, indicates its delight, used to maintain order, that is to say, order over The New York Call pays its tribute to our Karl after perfunctory expressions of regret, purely for and against the revolutionary masses. What does and Rosa, in words. But it says that time alone will mal, by smug variations upon the theme they that the Government military director, Noske, also a tell whether our two comrades were right or take the sword shall perish by the sword, Socialist say? We shall investigate!
whether Ebert. Scheidemann Co. were right.
The sword, used in the corrupting service of CapiBlasphemy! The attitude of the compromiser, of talism, evokes approval and applause; the sword, Our tribute to the dead comrades is not comprised the potential betrayer of Socialism!
used in the liberating service of Socialism, evokes in tears. The dead did not cry at the moment of Our Karl and Rosa waged the struggle for the condemnation and moral attitudes they that take dying; nor shall the living cry in sorrow. They died proletarian revolution, precisely as it was waged in the sword shall perish by the sword. the death supreme, our comrades Karl and Rosa, Russia; Ebert, Scheidemann Co. acted against the they died as they had lived, glorious, courageous; inspiring; and what finer death is there, comrades?
No; our tribute is not tears, nor sorrow. Glorious in life, our comrades are still more glorious in death; they are still of us, their struggle and their ideals in the blood and the agony of their death.
Their was a life of service to to revolutionary Socialism and their death may yet constitute the service. They cannot Our tribute is a revolu Pirit. bute out of is a death shall we snatch new life, new energy and their shall avenge their death not in Germany, it is true, but Germany is merely one part of the international field of battle; we shall avenge their death by a new and more intense struggle for the Social Revolution We shall not say farewell, o comrades, for you are still of us; you are still struggling, and you are still an inspiration and a source of life; though your bodies are in death. Accept our homage, great comrades. accept as the final tribute, you who contributed the final service our determination to struggle uncompromisingly and unflenchingly for the Social Revolution Rosa Luxemburg The flaming beauty of their death is a challenge.
Karl Liebknecht It is a challenge to each of us; it is a challenge to proletarian revolution at a time when the fate of the Imperialism in Germany and in Russia, in Austria and in Britain, France and Italy, took up the sword proletarian revolution in Russia and the world de Socialism. But the beauty of their death is not all: there have been martyrs in every cause, good and bad. pended largely upon the revolutionary proletariat in of reaction and plunged the world into a war of It is easier to die greatly than to live greatly. The Germany. And the Call, in style characteristic of slaves war that disintegrates the mind and the body of their death is in this, that it was the final its Menshevik, compromising, petty bourgeois ideo of man. But in the flames of this universal war there measure in the full cup of their devotion to revolutime was forged a logy, says with monstrous complacency that new sword, tempered, glorious, irresist tionary Socialism.
alone will tell who was right.
ible the sword of the proletarian revolution, of the Not their death, but in their life not in their The Call tribute is really an insult to our mararmed revolutionary proletariat. And when this this martyrs end but in their principles shall we garner tyred dead.
sword was invoked by the oppressed masses their real offering to our cause.
Their tribute shall not be words of honey, nol but many and in Russia, there was a unanimous protest from those who had justified the war, whose hands Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht the Lenin deeds of iron shall be their tribute the new revolu, and Trotzky of Germany flamed in revolt against tionary reconstruction of Socialism is the indispenswere dripping with the blood of slaughtered millions, the war; but they equally flamed in revolt against the able preliminary to the international proletarian revprotest, moreover, from the infamous Ebert Schei Socialist apologists of the war. They flamed in revolt olution.
demann majority Socialists of Germany. who dur. against Capitalism and Imperialism; but they equally ing four and a half years approved and supported Aamed in revolt against the petty bourgeois, major in my prison cell. Beyond the iron bars of the reactionary war waged by Imperial Germany, and ity Socialism that sustains Capitalism and Imperialism.
who, through their Socialist government, are resmy cell loom. starkly, the iron bars of my tier. and.
War against moderate, petty bourgeois Socialism still beyond. are the windows, with their iron bars.
ponsible for the assassination of Karl Liebknecht and is a necessary phase of the war against lism; It is night, and am imprisoned.
Rosa Luxemburg our Karl and waged this war war on two But know that, to morrow. day will flame forth While this man and woman heroically waged war fronts; and they were assassinated by the hirelings in all its fiery, inspiring beauty against German Imperialism and Kaiserism, their of Capitalism protected by the government of moder But know that the iron bars that now imprison official murderers were fawning upon and sustaining ate, petty bourgeois Socialism.
yield, and shall emerge into the world of Imperialism and Kaiserism.
While moderate Socialism in Germany fawned While this man and woman were loyal to Socialism, upon the bourgeoisie and Woodrow Wilson. Our Rosa It is night in the world of International Socialism; their official murderers were betraying and befouling and Karl struggled to complete the proletarian rev. but look, there is the rising sun of the Revolution in Socialism.
olution in Russia by spreading it in Germany and While this man and woman will secure the reverRussia, irradiating Germany. about to irradiate the Europe.
ence of revolutionary Socialism and of history, their world.
While moderate Socialism, in Bourbon fashion.
official murderers will be scourged as traitors, murderNight must yield to day.
learnt nothing and forgot nothing, our Rosa and Karl There are iron bars that now imprison Socialism ers, scoundrels.
The Ebert Scheidemann Socialist gangsters were in tune with the new rhythm of the Revolution. and the revolutionary proletariat; iron bars of fears.
Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were re of traditions. of deceptive policy and purposes; but their government for the suppression of Socialism presentatives of revolutionary Socialism. They had these iron bars will yet be snapt asunder.
are responsible for the assassination. They concluded seen the older Socialism enter the service of Imperial Socialism and the proletariat must emerge into the a defensive and offensive alliance with the worst ism; they had seen it crumble and then become mud; world of revolutionary action.
of the old regime against Socialism and and they refused to let this mud swallow them. And then, in us and through us. my comrade the proletarian revolution. they retained in authority is and protected Marshal Hindenburg and the counterKarl and my comrade Rosa. Will Alame your ardent one real tribute we can pay our martyred revolutionary general staff; they demobilized and dis comrades, who have met death in the great struggle dead not only our Karl and Rosa, but our other spirit and your great ideals.
They cannot still the spirit, o comrades. armed revolutionary troops, retained reactionary and that is to recognize that their spirit and policy The Aaming Rosa and the passionate Karl are now army units and brought these to Berlin to crush the are the policy and spirit of the new Socialism, of the among the myriard martyred dead of the struggle revolutionary masses. And these reactionary troops, new International, of the final struggle, and victory: to fill the mind and the soul of man.
coldly brutally, assassinated our great comrades. war against Capitalism and Imperialisms war against They died greatly. gloriously.
This is the responsibility of Ebert, Scheidemann moderate. petty bourgeois Socialism; on with the Let us live their ideals greatly, gloriously. If needs Co. This is their crime of crimes.
great struggle by means of revolutionary mass action must, let us die as they did.
The crime is done. What do the apologisis of the and the dictatorship of the proletariat!
To die in the cause of Life is not death, but life Ebert Scheidemann Government say? They that Except in Russia in Italy and in Norway, moder everlasting beauty in Ger: Rosa me will action. There