By ROSA LUXEMBOURG*
“We will make our voice resound loudly, the masses will understand us, and then they will turn all the more impetuously against these rumormongers and pogrom-provokers.”
“Liebknecht murdered 200 officers in Spandau. Liebknecht was murdered in Spandau. The Spartacists stormed the Marstall.[I]
The Spartacists wanted to invade the Berliner Tageblatt[ii] armed with machine guns. Liebknecht loots the shops. Liebknecht distributes money to the soldiers to incite them to counterrevolution.”
“The Spartacists are advancing on Parliament.” At this news, the bench of the Popular Progressive Party gathered there panicked and the dignified assembly dispersed, leaving behind them, on the stage where horrible crimes were awaited, hats, umbrellas and other precious objects, almost irreplaceable today.
This is how the most stupid rumors about our tendency have been circulating for a week now. That somewhere a window will shatter on the street, that a tire will burst on the corner with a loud crash, and then some idiot, looking around with his hair standing on end and his spine standing on end, will exclaim: “Aha! It’s definitely the Spartacists!”
Several people made a touching personal request to Karl Liebknecht: please exclude their husband, nephew or aunt from the massacre planned by the Spartacists. This is what happened, I tell you the truth, in the first year, in the first month of the glorious German revolution.
Seeing this, who doesn't think about the scene? Magic Flute in which the little rascal Monostatos, terrified by the shadow of Papageno, trembling with fear, sings:
I believe it is the devil,
Yes, yes, it's the devil,
Ah! if I were a mouse,
How would I hide,
Ah! If I were a snail,
Soon I would enter my house.[iii]
But behind these confusing rumors, these ridiculous fantasies, these absurd bandit stories and these shameless lies, something very serious is going on: there is a system involved. The campaign is being conducted in a planned manner. The rumors are deliberately fabricated and spread in public: these fairy tales serve to throw the idiots into a state of panic, to confuse public opinion, to intimidate and disorient the workers and soldiers, to create an atmosphere of pogrom and to politically stab the Spartakist tendency before it has a chance to make its policies and aims known to the broad masses.
The game is old. It is enough to remember how four years ago, when war broke out, the warmongers, through their agents, put into circulation the most extravagant rumors: golden automobiles, French aviators, poisoned fountains, gouged out eyes – all this to provoke a blind warlike rage and to use the workers as cannon fodder.[iv] Today, the same thing is happening, with the aim of disorienting the masses, sowing blind hatred among them so that they allow themselves to be used, unconsciously and uncritically, against the Spartakist tendency.
We know the melody, we know the lyrics and even the authors. These are the circles of dependent social democrats,[v] by Scheidemann, Ebert, Otto Braun, by Bauer, Legien and Baumeister[vi] who deliberately poison public opinion with shameless lies and instigate the people against us because they fear our criticism and have every reason to fear it.
These people, who a week before the revolution broke out denounced as a crime, “putschism”, ventured any idea of revolution in Germany, who declared that democracy had already been achieved in Germany because Prince Max[vii] was chancellor and Scheidemann and Erzberger were walking around in ministerial attire, these people today want to persuade the people that the revolution has already been made and that the main objectives have already been achieved. “They want to delay the continuation of the revolution, they want to save capitalist property, capitalist exploitation!” This is the “order” and “calm” that they want to protect against us.
That is the difficulty. And that is also the reason why these gentlemen harbor such deadly fear and hatred towards us. They know perfectly well that we do not loot shops, although we want to abolish private property; that we do not storm the Marstall or Parliament, although we want to destroy the class rule of the bourgeoisie; that we do not murder anyone, although we uncompromisingly want to advance the revolution in the interests of the workers.
With full awareness and clear intentions, they distort our socialist goals into a lumpenproletarian adventure to disorient the masses. They shout against coups, assassinations and other similar absurdities, but it is socialism that they have in mind. In seeking to stab the Spartacist tendency, they are trying to strike at the heart of the proletarian revolution itself!
But the game will not succeed. They will not silence us. Some lucid sections of workers and soldiers may yet momentarily allow themselves to be incited against us. A momentary return of the counterrevolutionary wave may lead us back to one of those prisons we have just left – the iron march of the revolution cannot be stopped. We will make our voice resound loudly, the masses will understand us, and then they will turn all the more vehemently against these rumormongers and pogrom-provokers.
And then the storm will destroy, not the Marstall, the bakeries or the fearful idiots, but it will sweep you away, you who yesterday were accomplices of the bourgeois reaction and Prince Max, you, protective troops of capitalist exploitation, you, patrols of the counterrevolution on the lookout, you, wolves in sheep's clothing!
*Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919), economist and philosopher, was a leader of the SPD and the Spartacist movement. Author of, among other books, Reform or revolution? (popular expression).
Translation: Isabel Loureiro.
Originally published in Die Rote Fahne, No. 3, November 18, 1918.
As January 15 approaches – the day in 1919 when Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were assassinated by police officers of the German social democratic government – we publish texts that recover the legacy of these important revolutionaries.
Translator's notes
[I] Stables: military building where a unit of revolutionary sailors is stationed.
[ii] Berliner Tageblatt: newspaper of the major Berlin press.
[iii] Ich glaub', das ist der Teufel,/ Ja, ja, das ist der Teufel,/ Ach, wär' ich eine Maus,/ Wie wollt' ich mich verstecken,/ Ach, wär' ich eine Schnecken,/ Gleich kröch' ich in my house.
[iv] Cf. the beginning of The crisis of social democracy.
[v] Rosa Luxemburg refers to the majority social democrats, opposing them to the independents.
[vi] Albert Baumeister: trade union leader; in 1919 he helped to arm a regiment of volunteers to support the Social Democratic party and government against the revolutionaries.
[vii] Max von Baden, cousin of Emperor William, was appointed Chancellor of the German Empire on October 3, 1918. He formed a cabinet with Erzberger of the Center Party, two Social Democrats, Scheidemann and Bauer, and the Liberals. Germany became a parliamentary monarchy until November 9, when the Emperor was forced to resign due to the revolutionary wave that swept the defeated country in the war.
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