Glossary

Organisations

ADGB (Allgemeiner Deutsche Gewekschaftsbund): German Confederation of Trade Unions. Associated with the SPD.

Comintern: See ‘Third (Communist) International’.

Freikorps (Free Corps): Right-wing gangs of mercenaries often made up of war veterans and associated with the military. The Freikorps were established by the old general staff and financed by the Ministry of War. They were used by Noske to crush the revolution from 1919, and were behind the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

KPD (Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, Communist Party of Germany): Founded in December 1918, primarily by the Spartacus League, it was led by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and others. It fused with the left wing of the USPD in December 1920 to form the United Communist Party of Germany (VKPD), although the word ‘United’ was dropped from its name soon thereafter.

Left Opposition: Founded by Trotsky in 1923 in order to fight the growing bureaucracy in Russia. The Left Opposition was expelled from the Russian Communist Party in 1927. The International Left Opposition, the forerunner of the Fourth International, was founded in 1930.

Left-Radicals: Based in Bremen. Joined the Spartacists in late 1918 to found the KPD.

PPS (Polska Partia Socjalistyczna, Polish Socialist Party): Founded in 1892 at a congress of all Polish socialists in exile. The PPS unified all Polish socialist émigré groups, as well as groups inside Russian-occupied Poland. Luxemburg and Jogiches joined the party but split from it in 1893 to found the SDKPiL. In 1906, another split took place between the Left Faction and the right-wing Revolutionary Faction, led by Józef Piłsudski. Piłsudski would later go on to become the dictator of Poland. The left wing of the party went on to join the SDKPiL in founding the Communist Party of Poland in 1918.

Reichstag (Diet of the Realm): The German parliament.

Reichswehr (Realm Defence): The regular army of the Weimar Republic. The Reichswehr was composed of regular units and the Freikorps.

Revolutionary Stewards (Revolutionäre Obleute): An organisation of German shop stewards that emerged in the course of the First World War. They opposed the war and acted independently of the official trade unions and the SPD.

SA (Sturmabteilung, Stormtroopers): The original paramilitary organisation of the German National Socialist Workers’ Party (Nazi Party). Its origins can be traced back to the Freikorps that were used against workers and communists during the German Revolution.

SDKPiL (Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy, The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania): Founded in 1893 as the Social Democracy of Poland, the party originated as a split from the PPS. The core of the organisation initially included Rosa Luxemburg, Leo Jogiches, Marchlewski (Karski), and Warszawski (Warski). In 1899, it fused with the Union of Workers in Lithuania, thus changing its name to The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL). The SDKPiL joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) in 1907 and gained two representatives on the central committee. Together with other groups, it founded the Communist Party of Poland in 1918.

Second International (or Socialist International): Founded in 1889 as the successor to the First International that had been founded by Marx and Engels in 1864. In 1914, almost all national sections of the International supported ‘their own’ imperialist governments in the First World War, and the International collapsed. It was revived as a thoroughly reformist organisation in 1923.

Spartacus League (Spartakusbund): Named after Spartacus, the leader of the famous slave rebellion against ancient Rome. It began its existence as a revolutionary tendency in opposition to the war inside the SPD from 1914. Its members included Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, Franz Mehring and Leo Jogiches. They would later leave the SPD and join the USPD in 1917. The Spartacists then split from the USPD and founded the KPD in December 1918.

SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, The Social Democratic Party of Germany): Often referred to as ‘Social Democrats’ or, after the split in the party in 1917 (see ‘USPD’), as ‘majority Social Democrats’. The party was originally founded in 1875 as a fusion between two socialist groups: one comprising supporters of Ferdinand Lassalle, and the other around August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, known as the ‘Eisenach Party’. The SPD was considered to be the leading Marxist party in the Second International, with more than a million members in 1914.

Third (Communist) International, or ‘Comintern’: Organised under the leadership of Lenin as the revolutionary successor to the Second International and a tool for the world socialist revolution. It was founded in March 1919, and in the course of its first four congresses it developed and implemented the ideas and methods of Bolshevism on the world arena. From its fifth congress in 1924 to its dissolution in 1943 it came under the control of the Stalinist bureaucracy, and was gradually converted into little more than a tool of Stalin’s foreign policy.

USPD (Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany): Also known as the ‘independents’, the USPD was founded in April 1917 by the opposition which had been expelled from the SPD. The party participated in the provisional government from November to December 1918. In 1917 the party had 120,000 members, growing to 750,000 members by 1919. In 1920 the majority of the party joined the KPD. The minority returned to the SPD in 1922.

Zentrale: The Executive Committee of the KPD.

Papers

Die Neue Zeit (The New Times): The theoretical journal of the SPD from 1883 to 1923.

Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag): Initially the newspaper of the Spartacists, and later of the KPD.

Sprawa Robotnicza (The Workers’ Cause): Political organ of the SDKPiL. Founded in 1893 by Leo Jogiches and Rosa Luxemburg, its editor.

Vorwärts (Forward): Central newspaper of the SPD for many decades. Founded in 1876.

Individuals

Adler, Victor (1852-1918): Austrian Social Democrat. One of the founders of the Social-Democratic movement in Austria.

Baden, Prince Max von (1867-1929): Replaced Emperor Wilhelm II as German chancellor for two months in 1918, during which time the war ended and the Weimar Republic was founded.

Bauer, Otto (1881-1938): Leader of the so-called ‘Austro-Marxists’, he played a leading role in the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ). Leader of the party in 1918. Went into exile following the February Uprising of 1934.

Bebel, August (1840-1913): One of the founders of the SPD. Official chairman of the party from 1892 to 1913.

Bernstein, Eduard (1850-1932): Leading German Social Democrat. The first person to give a theoretical expression to reformism in the Second International. His revisionism was harshly opposed by Rosa Luxemburg. Bernstein opposed the war from a pacifist point of view, but was also opposed to the German Revolution. He was one of the founders of the USPD in 1917, but re-joined the SPD in 1920.

David, Eduard (1863-1930): German Social Democrat. Member of the Reichstag between 1903-18 and a key advocate of the ‘parliamentary truce’ during the war.

Duncker, Hermann (1874-1960): Member of the SPD, during which time he was among the publishers of Die Internationale and a member of the Spartacus League. Later a founder of the KPD and member of the party’s Central Committee. Married to Käthe Duncker.

Duncker, Käthe (1871-1953): Member of the SPD, during which time she was among the publishers of Die Internationale and a member of the Spartacus League. Later a founder of the KPD and member of the party’s Central Committee. Married to Hermann Duncker.

Eberlein, Hugo (1887-1941): Member of the SPD in 1906. Opposed to the war in 1914. Member of the Spartacus League and the Central Committee of the KPD. Delegate at the first congress of the Third International, played a leading role in the Comintern. Went into exile in the Soviet Union in 1933, where he was arrested by the GPU during the Moscow trials. Stalin intended to hand him over to Hitler, but he died in prison in 1941.

Ebert, Friedrich (1871-1925): Leading member of the SPD from the right wing of the party. Advocated a chauvinist position during the war. Chancellor in 1918. Between November 1918 and December 1919 he was chairman of the workers’ and soldiers’ councils’ Executive Committee. Worked with the general staff of the army to crush the revolution. President of Germany from 1919 to 1925.

Eichhorn, Emil (1863-1925): Former glass worker. Eichhorn worked for the SPD from 1893 and was leader of the party’s press bureau between 1908 and 1917. A member of the USPD from 1917 to 1920. His dismissal as Berlin chief of police – an office he was given in 1918 – provoked the so-called ‘Spartacus Uprising’. He joined the KPD in 1920 and died in 1925.

Eisner, Kurt (1867-1919): Editor of Vorwärts from 1900 to 1906. Initially supported the war but went over to a pacifist opposition. Founded the USPD in Munich and was imprisoned in January 1918. Led the November Revolution in 1918 in Bavaria, where he was made prime minister. Was murdered by the monarchist Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley in February 1919.

Fischer, Ruth (1895-1961): Joined the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) at the age of nineteen and was one of the first members of the Austrian Communist Party in 1918. Led an ultra-left opposition in the KPD after she moved to Berlin. Leader of the KPD from 1924 to 1925 but was expelled in 1926. She later became an anti-communist.

Frölich, Paul (1894-1953): Joined the SPD at the age of eighteen and was part of the far-left wing of the party. Elected to the Central Committee of the KPD at its founding congress. He was expelled from the KPD in 1928 and joined Brandler’s KPO (the right-wing opposition within the Communist Party). Later joined the centrist SAP (Socialistische Arbeiderspartij) in Belgium. Went into exile after nine months in a concentration camp in 1933. Returned to West Germany and re-joined the SPD in 1950.

Haase, Hugo (1863-1919): SPD member of the Reichstag from 1897, and co-chairman of the party from 1911 to 1916. Initially opposed to war credits in 1914 but followed party discipline until 1916 where he voted against new credits. Co-chairman of the USPD in 1917 and member of the Council of People’s Commissars from November to December 1918. He was murdered by a monarchist in 1919.

Haenisch, Konrad (1876-1925): On the radical left wing of the SPD. Argued along with Luxemburg in 1910 in favour of the party using the mass strike as a means of struggle. Shifted rightwards during the war as part of a nationalist wing in the party and advocated that the SPD support war credits in the Reichstag.

Hanecki, Yakov (1879-1937): Known in Russia as Ganetsky. Real name Jakub Fürstenberg. Active in the Polish social democracy from 1896 and later became a communist. Close collaborator with Lenin. Worked for the Stalinist regime after Lenin’s death until he was sentenced to death in 1937.

Huysmans, Camille (1871-1968): Belgian social democrat. Member of the Belgian parliament from 1910-1965. Secretary for the Second International from 1905-1922. Prime minister from 1946-1947. Minister of Education from 1947-1949.

Jaurès, Jean (1859-1914): Leader of the French Socialist Party in 1902. Assassinated in 1914 after having opposed the war.

Jogiches, Leo (1867-1919): Commonly known by the party name Jan Tyszka. Active in the revolutionary movement from an early age. Close collaborator of Rosa Luxemburg, who was also his partner for many years. One of the founders of the Polish revolutionary social democracy and active in the Polish Revolution of 1905. Fled to Germany in 1907 and became a Spartacist organiser during the war. Member of the Central Committee of the KPD since the founding congress. Arrested and murdered by Freikorps in March 1919.

Kapp, Wolfgang (1858-1922): Founder of the far-right German Fatherland Party in 1917. He led the coup attempt of 1920, which attempted to re-establish the monarchy and establish a military dictatorship.

Kautsky, Karl (1854-1938): One of Engels’ collaborators, he was founder and editor of Die Neue Zeit. Friend and collaborator of Rosa Luxemburg’s until 1910. He was considered the main theoretician of Marxism until 1914, when he refused to oppose war credits and acted as a cover for the right-wing of the SPD. When he broke with the SPD in 1917 and became one of the founders of the USPD, he was on the right of the new party. He opposed the socialist revolution in Germany and returned to the SPD in 1922.

Kautsky, Luise (1864-1944): Social Democrat. Close friend of Rosa Luxemburg. Mayor of Berlin for the USPD from 1918. She published a book in memory of Rosa Luxemburg in 1929. Married to Karl Kautsky.

Landsberg, Otto (1869-1957): Lawyer and one of the leaders of the SPD. Member of the Council of People’s Commissars after November 1918. Minister of Justice under Scheidemann from 1919 to 1920.

Lasalle, Ferdinand (1825-1864): One of the founders of the SPD.

Ledebour, Georg (1850-1947): SPD member of the Reichstag from 1900-18. One of the leaders of the USPD following the party’s foundation. A member of the revolutionary committee during the ‘Spartacist Uprising’.

Legien, Carl (1861-1920): SPD member of the Reichstag from the right wing of the party. The first chairman of the trade union federation, the ADGB.

Levi, Paul (1883-1930): A member of the SPD from 1906. As a revolutionary, he was opposed to the war and worked with Lenin in Switzerland for its duration. He later joined the Spartacus League and became a member of the Central Committee of the KPD and was a central leader of the party following the murder of Leo Jogiches in 1919. He opposed the ultra-left turn in 1919 and became chairman of the United Communist Party in 1920. However, he stepped back in 1921 and was expelled from the party for publicly denouncing the ‘March Action’ of that same year. He published Rosa Luxemburg’s article ‘The Russian Revolution’ in 1922 after breaking with the KPD. In the same year, he joined the USPD and later the SPD, in which he organised a left opposition until his death in 1930.

Liebknecht, Karl (1871-1919): Son of one of the SPD’s founders, Wilhelm Liebknecht, he joined the party in 1900. He established the Socialist Youth International in 1907 and was imprisoned the same year for writing the pamphlet ‘Militarism and Anti-Militarism’. He was an alternate member of the Reichstag from 1912 and became the first member of the Reichstag to vote against war credits in December 1914. He was a founding member of the Spartacus League. Imprisoned in 1916 for agitation against the war, he was amnestied in 1918. Leader of the KPD. He led the revolutionary committee during the ‘Spartacist Uprising’ in Berlin in January 1919. He was murdered by the Freikorps in January 1919, together with Rosa Luxemburg.

Liebknecht, Sophie (1884-1964): Member of the SPD and later of the KPD. A close friend of Rosa Luxemburg. Married to Karl Liebknecht.

Ludendorff, Erich (1865-1937): German general. Practically led Germany, along with Hindenburg, in the closing period of the First World War. He represented the far-right German Völkisch Freedom Party (Deutschvölkische Freiheitspartei) and supported the Kapp Putsch.

Marchlewski, Julian (1866-1925): Known by the alias Karski. Co-founder of the SDKPiL, he joined the Bolsheviks in 1906. Moved to Germany in 1907 and was active on the left wing of the SPD. A close collaborator with Rosa Luxemburg.

Martov, Julius (1873-1923): Participated in the publication of Iskra in 1900. Became a leading figure in the minority (‘Menshevik’) faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party after its second congress in 1903. A leader of the ‘Menshevik Internationalists’. He opposed the seizure of power by the soviets in 1917.

Mehring, Franz (1846-1919): Leading member of the SPD. During the war he collaborated with Rosa Luxemburg in the Spartacus League. He was very ill when he learned of the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in January 1919, and died less than two weeks later in Berlin.

Millerand, Alexandre (1859-1943): French socialist. First socialist to take a ministerial position in a bourgeois government, sparking a polemic in the Second International. President of France from 1920-4.

Müller, Richard (1880-1943): Chairman of the metalworkers’ trade union in Berlin. Leader of the Revolutionary Stewards. Initially a member of the SPD then the USPD, until he joined the Communist Party in 1920.

Noske, Gustav (1868-1946): Leader of the SPD and member of the right wing of the party. He was a member of the Council of People’s Commissars from 1918-9. Minister of war from December 1918 until March 1920. He organised the suppression of the revolutionary movement in January 1919 and stepped down from office following the Kapp Putsch, after which he became president of the Hannover province until he was dismissed by the Nazis. He was imprisoned twice by the Nazis.

Parvus (1867-1924): A Russian–German social democrat, born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand in a Jewish-Lithuanian family. During the Russian Revolution of 1905 he was active on the left wing of the Russian movement. He then fled to Germany where he settled. His credentials as a revolutionary were tainted by numerous scandals and business ventures that made him a wealthy war profiteer and his allegiances questionable.

Plekhanov, Georgi (1856-1918): Known as the ‘father of Russian Marxism’ and the founder of the Russian social democracy. He went over to the Mensheviks shortly after the second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903. He became a social patriot during the war and fiercely opposed the seizure of power by the soviets in October 1917.

Potresov, Alexander (1869-1934): One of the early members of the Russian social-democratic movement. He joined the Mensheviks after failing to be elected to the editorial board of Iskra at the second congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, and he remained on the right wing of the party. He maintained good connections with the SPD.

Radek, Karl (1885-1939): Active in the Polish revolutionary movement from the age of eighteen. He was involved in the Polish Revolution of 1905 and supported the left wing of the SPD in Germany in 1908. Along with Lenin, he was a part of the ‘Zimmerwald Left’ in 1915. He joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 and was secretly sent to Germany in 1918. He was arrested in February 1919 and released again in January 1920. Played a leading role in the Executive Committee of the Communist International and later joined Trotsky’s opposition to Stalin. He was expelled from the Communist Party in 1927 and deported to Alma Ata but capitulated in 1929 and became an apologist for Stalin. He was arrested in 1937 during the Moscow show trials and died in prison.

Roland-Holst, Henriette (1869-1952): Dutch writer and socialist. Member of the Dutch Communist Party from 1918.

Rühle, Otto (1874-1943): Opposed to the First World War. Joined the Spartacus League and the KPD but was later expelled. He joined the SPD in 1923 but left Germany in 1933 and went to Mexico.

Scheidemann, Phillip (1865-1939): Right-wing member of the SPD’s Reichstag group, Scheidemann became one of the central leaders of the party after Bebel’s death in 1913. He led the SPD’s support for the war from 1914 and became the party’s co-chairman in 1917. He was proclaimed minister without portfolio by the emperor in October 1918 and proclaimed the republic in November of the same year. A member of Ebert’s Council of People’s Commissars, he led the suppression of the revolution from 1918 to 1919 and was made chancellor in 1919. In 1933 he was forced into exile when the Nazi Party rose to power.

Thalheimer, August (1884-1948): Involved with the Spartacists during the war years, he later played a key role in the KPD. He was critical of the party’s ultra-left turns, and was made a scapegoat for the defeat in the 1923 Revolution. He was expelled from the KPD in 1929. Helped form the Right Opposition in Germany. After being detained in France he was sent to exile in Cuba.

Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre (1846-1904): French republican politician.

Warszawski, Jerzy Adolf (1868-1937): Known by the alias ‘Warski’, he co-founded the SDKPiL and was a member of the Executive Committee of the party. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Polish Communist Party from 1919 to 1929.

Wels, Otto (1879-1939): Right-wing member of the SPD. Chief commander of Berlin and responsible for crushing the left from January to March 1919. He led the opposition against Hitler in the Reichstag in 1933 and advocated “legal, non-violent resistance”. He was exiled to Paris from 1933.

Wilhelm II, Friedrich (1859-1941): German emperor from 1888 until his abdication in 1918.

Wurm, Emanuel (1857-1920): Member of the SPD and later of the USPD. Married to Mathilde Wurm.

Wurm, Mathilde (1874-1939): Initially a member of the Reichstag for the SPD and then the USPD in the period 1920-1933. Married to Emanuel Wurm.

Zasulich, Vera (1849-1919): Along with Plekhanov, she co-founded the Emancipation of Labour Group – the predecessor of Iskra and of Russian social democracy.

Zetkin, Clara (1857-1933): Played a leading role in the SPD. Editor of the SPD’s women’s magazine, Die Gleicheit, from 1891 to 1917. Joined the Spartacus League and later the KPD, for which she was a member of the Central Committee from 1927-1929. Zetkin was a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International from 1921 to 1933, and a KPD Reichstag deputy from 1923 until 1933. Close friend of Rosa Luxemburg.

Zetkin, Konstantin (1885-1980): Clara Zetkin’s son and, for a period, Rosa Luxemburg’s lover.

Zinoviev, Grigory (1883-1936): A leading Bolshevik in 1917. He became a leading figure in the Communist International and was later made responsible for Germany. He was removed from all leading positions by Stalin in 1926 and executed during the show trials of 1936.