Edward Aveling (1896)

Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Social-Democratic Movement in Germany

Source: Penny Pamphlet, The Twentieth Century Press, London. 16 pages.
Note: Written on behalf of the Zürich Committee for the International Socialist workers and Trade Union Congress, London, July 26 to August 1, 1896.
Transcription: by Graham Seaman for MIA, February 2021
Proofread: by Bill Wright, January 2022.

WILHELM LIEBKNECHT AND THE SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT IN GERMANY

The occasion of Liebknecht’s visit to England on a lecturing tour under the auspices of the Zürich Committee for the International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress, London, July, 1896, is taken advantage of by that Committee to give English leaders some idea of the work that has been done by Liebknecht during his long life. That life has now lasted 70 years. His 70th birthday, on the 29th of March, 1896, was celebrated in Berlin with as much demonstration of rejoicing as if it had been the birthday of a monarch; except that here the feeling was spontaneous and genuine. And the celebration and congratulations were not confined to Germany alone. The whole world took part in them. This year is not only the 70th of Liebknecht’s life; it is also the 50th since his first expulsion by the German police.

Whilst, as he humourously put it, he has kept his seventieth birthday several times, the most important of its celebrations was the dinner and soirée given to him on the night of March 28 and the morning of March 29, by his fellow workers on the daily Socialist paper, the Vorwärts, and his fellow workers in the German Parliament. The place was the Feen palace, whose great hall and adjoining rooms were filled with his friends. After dinner there was a concert, and the recitation of a poem in which the passage most loudly applauded ran: “And yet even this very day they spare not thy silver white hairs. The turnkey is beckoning once again. . . . Thou as heretofore wilt take the place of honour behind the prison bars.” The reference here, of course, is to the fact that Liebknecht has been condemned to four months imprisonment for the grievous crime of insulting the half lunatic jackanapes who calls himself the German Emperor. In fact, as soon as the English lecturing tour is over, the old man of 70 will go back to Germany and to prison. After the poem came a speech from Borgmann. We quote part of this speech, and would have it remembered that this quotation and the others that we give are given with the view of showing in what estimation Liebknecht is held by those that know him. Borgmann said: “If to-day the German Social-Democratic Party is the strongest party in Germany, next to the sacrifices and endurance of the working classes Wilhelm Liebknecht has to be thanked among the first. Fifty years of thy life, Comrade Liebknecht, have been years of fighting, oblivious of self, for the emancipation of the people. We thank thee, indefatigable, undefeatable fighter, who hast always placed thine own interest far behind that of the general cause. Now, as in its metallic tones, the clock proclaims the beginning of a new day, the 29th of March, in the name of thy constituents and of all thy comrades in Berlin, I give thee the heartiest good wishes upon thy birthday. Still, for long years stay with us, old friend. Go on before us; we will follow thee. And now, do you oh comrades, join in the cry: ‘Long life to our birthday child, the veteran of our party, Wilhelm Liebknecht.’”

After this speech Frau Scholz, on behalf of the women of Berlin, presented Liebknecht with a bouquet and still more verses. August Bebel also presented him with a bronze plaque on red plush with an oak crown round it, bearing the inscription “To its oldest member, Wilhelm Liebknecht, on the seventieth anniversary of his birth, from the Social-Democratic Fraction of the German Reichstag. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. (Happy is he who can know the causes of things.)” Upon the ribbons of this bronze plaque or crown were the words, “Giessen, 29 March, 1826. Berlin, 29 March, 1896.”

We quote a sentence or two from Liebknecht’s reply in thanks. “As long as I have been in the fight, I have been used to being the target for all arrows. I am used to blame, to calumny, to enmity of all kinds, and I have learned to defy them all with laughter. But I am not used to praise, and that has so overwhelmed me. We Social-Democrats are not generally spoiled in that direction. We use sharp criticism among ourselves, and consequently this which has been my fate for some days — for this evening I am already celebrating my 70th birthday for the third time — has been new to me. I am really embarrassed with it all. These thanks which have been lavished upon me I must in great part return; for I should not have been able to do what I have done without my teachers, Marx and Engels — without Lassalle, without my fellow fighters here, without you all. I have often thought of the words of Napoleon after the Battle of Waterloo, ‘These wretched English never know when they are beaten.’ According to all the rules of warfare, the English were beaten at Waterloo; but they didn't think they were beaten and they won. So I have never admitted that I was beaten, and so has the proletariat never admitted that it was beaten.”

Then there was the singing of the “Marseillaise” and the presentation of a tableau. “Freedom” in the midst, in the person of a beautiful girl. On one hand of her, representatives of different trades in their working clothes, under the leadership of a man made up exactly like Liebknecht. On the other hand, Bismarck, Stumm, Hammerstein, with his Flora Gazz and his Stöcker, soldiers and police.

Besides the public festival, at his home, 40, Kantstrasse, Charlottenburg, near Berlin, Liebknecht received many deputations and visitors. Deputations from the writers of the Vorwärts, the printers of the Vorwärts, his Berlin constituents (he is member for the sixth of the six divisions of Berlin), from trade unions and from the local committees. At the office of the Vorwärts and at his private house, hundreds of telegrams were delivered; over 300 from Germany alone, and over 100 from other countries. Switzerland sent 25, England 12, France 8. More than 900 cards of congratulation were received, and over 250 of these came from America. The party press of Germany and other countries was full of poems, articles, studies about him or in his honour. The Socialist members in all the Parliaments where they have representation, sent special messages. The tone of all these letters, telegrams, messages may be gathered from one instance, the telegram sent by the Bordeaux Socialists. “Honour and gratitude to the valiant Liebknecht for his incomparable services to International Socialism, and for the admirable example of unshaken firmness in convictions and indomitable energy in fight that he has given to the soldiers of the universal proletariat.”

The following are one or two more out of the vast number of telegrams received:—

From the Hamburger Echo.

“Seventy years, grey-haired, the heart still young, many warfares, many victories, hard fighter. Our greetings to you.”

From the French Socialists in the Chamber of Deputies.

“Honour and long life to the veteran in the social fight for the freeing of mankind.”

From the S.D.F., London.

“Heartiest good wishes and sincerest congratulations on seventieth birthday.”

From the I.L.P., London.

“The comrades of Independent Labour Party of Great Britain send loving greetings and look forward with keen interest to your visit.”

From Edinburgh.

“Congratulations and all good wishes from the Edinburgh Socialists to their beloved old soldier of the revolution.”

From Amsterdam.

“The Social-Democratic Party of the Netherlands sends the heartiest good wishes to the fighter for freedom on his seventieth birthday.”

From the Italian Socialist Members of Parliament.

“The Socialist Deputies of Italy know that they are conveying the feelings and wishes of all comrades in Italy when they greet the grand old fighter, and wish him still many years during which he may carry on his work of propaganda, organisation and education, in the fight for the international freeing of the proletariat.”

From Vienna.

“To our beloved old soldier Social-Democrat, and fraternal greetings on his seventieth birthday.”

From Agram in Croatia.

“A thrice thundering hurrah to our untiring fighter Wilhelm on his seventieth birthday.”

From Sweden.

“Hail to thee, trusty and inflexible fighter on behalf of the proletariat and humanity.”

To these manifold messages Liebknecht was only able to answer through the medium of the paper that he edits, the Vorwärts. “To the thousands, I may say hundreds of thousands, who have during these last few days borne witness to their sympathy with, trust in, and love for, me, I herewith return my heartfelt thanks, as I shall be able to return them personally to only a few. I will prove my gratitude by continuing to do my duty to the best of my ability. The greatness of our party, which embraces the thinking and acting proletariat of all countries, and bears the future in its bosom, has by this occasion been brought home really overwhelmingly to my consciousness and understanding. Here there are no separating boundaries of nationality or religion — but only the one international people of the emancipators of labour, who know only one foe — capitalism, the exploiter, oppressor and debaser of the international people. Once again, thanks to my friends near and far away — my comrades in the fight in Germany, and my brethren in France, Austria, England, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Poland, Russia, Bulgaria, Roumelia, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Australia and America. Thanks, a thousand times thanks, and Hurrah! for the International Social-Democracy. Charlottenburg, March 30th, 1896. Wilhelm Liebknecht.”

As we have said, the Socialist party press everywhere had notices and congratulations about this seventieth birthday. Naturally, the middle class press indulged in their usual conspiracy of silence on such a great occasion. In the bourgeois papers almost no notice was taken of this great demonstration. English readers will have observed that the ordinary English newspapers were all silent about it. Nevertheless, we quote from one German paper belonging to the middle classes, the Berlin Volkszeitung, its tribute to Liebknecht. “So far as the personality of Liebknecht concerns us we hold it to be the first duty of a politician to be just to his political opponents, and to learn to consider him from the purely human standpoint. Thus considered it appears to us clear that during his long, active life, under the most difficult conditions, that have involved him in the heaviest personal sacrifices, he has been, and remains, faithful to his work for the masses of the people.”

We quote next part of the beautiful article written by the Austrian, Doctor [Victor] Adler, editor of the Socialist daily, the Vienna Arbeiter Zeitung. “In these testimonies of love and veneration for one of the most prominent representatives of Social-Democracy there is not a trace of that unpleasant deification of a personality which hides behind the glamour of a well known name the emptiness and selfishness of its own personal ends. The workers hold Liebknecht as worthy, not because he appears before them as an idol, but because they bear about within them the most living results of the deeds and the teachings of the man. Liebknecht’s writings have led the workers into the way of knowledge. His name is bound up with the memory of the great successes and the most famous deeds of the fighting proletariat. The courageous self-sacrifice, the joy in battle, that have proved to the full the strength of character of the old fighter, stand out as an example for every soldier of the proletariat. The fruits of this life so rich in deeds belong first to the German workers. Liebknecht was at the beginning of this great political organisation of the proletariat, he helped in its earliest advances, he fought in the van of the defence during the terrible years of the anti-Socialist laws; in all the counsels of the very important Congresses for the development of the party he was prominent and active, just as his name is recalled to memory by the debates in the Reichstag that redounded so to the honour of the representatives of the German workers there. Liebknecht is one of the ablest agitators, the best speakers, and the most prominent writers of the German Party. And yet his work belongs no less to the International Workers’ movement. Not only because the effect of his writings reaches far beyond the frontiers of Germany; not only because the feeling of the oneness of our efforts makes all workers share, not only in the results obtained by themselves, but in the results obtained by the workers in any country; but because Liebknecht is one of the most active and most faithful furtherers of the idea of the internationality of our movement. Liebknecht celebrates his seventieth birthday in the vigour of unbroken strength, in the full activity of his faculties. So that to-day the time is still far distant for estimating the value and significance of a life whose future hides in it a rich aftermath of deeds and work.”

Finally, we quote the few words of those writers on the Vorwärts who have been for years in daily and hourly communication with their editor:— “Everyone knows that Liebknecht is one of the truest friends of the working people; an unselfish, untiring fighter in the van of Socialism; a veteran of the democracy; the embodiment of the international solidarity of the proletariat of all countries.”

Adler’s words, and, indeed, the whole tone of the telegrams, letters, and articles show that in this demonstration upon the seventieth birthday of Liebknecht there is nothing of the unhealthy side of hero-worship. Hero-worship in itself is not a bad emotion, especially for the younger of us. Only let us be sure that we are worshipping heroes — an assurance very difficult to get, unless our hero is well removed from us in capacity at least, and also, perhaps, in time. What we have here in these congratulations from thousands and thousands of people is evidence again of the fact that in the long run the people do not forget those that work for them, and that they never quite forget their martyrs. Undoubtedly, the working-class is a hard task-master, and has a natural aptitude for dwelling upon the deficiencies and the blunders rather than the efficiency and the good work done. But how completely the bourgeois miscalculate the real feeling of the working-class is shown by the remarkable demonstration in connection with Liebknecht’s birthday. We cannot do better here than quote a few words of Bebel from his article on Liebknecht in the Neue Zeit:— “Although opposed to all cult of the individual, the Social-Democratic Party can and will not fail to pay to the man who has been its leader longer than the ordinary life of a man the tribute of thankfulness for what he has done, suffered, and gained for the party. In the person of Liebknecht, I repeat, is embodied that of the party; his own life is that of the party; his life more than that of any other amongst us is bound up with the life and development of the party.”

A brief sketch of that life we now give. He was born March 29th, 1826, at Giessen, of what is commonly called a good family. As far back as the beginning of the eighteenth century an ancestor of his was Professor and Rector of the University of Giessen, and as far back as the middle of the sixteenth century a certain ancestor of his, Martin Luther, was making some stir in the world. At the early age of sixteen Wilhelm Liebknecht entered the University of Giessen. Theology, philology, and later, and with much more intensity, philosophy, were his studies. Afterwards he was at the Universities of Marburg and Berlin. He was training for the position of a teacher, and at one time he had some idea of becoming an advocate. But events, in their inexorable way, forced him out of these quiet paths — if, indeed, the path of an advocate is very quiet. The absolute rule of Metternich and the writings of Saint Simon were among the forces that drove him into the revolutionary movement. What would be called an accident was another of the forces. Feeling that, with the conditions then obtaining in Germany, there was little chance for him as either teacher or advocate, he made up his mind to go to America. He was actually on his way thither when he met a Zürich teacher, who induced him to come to Zürich.

Just after his arrival, the Sonderbund War broke out, and then the February Revolution of 1848 in Paris. The young enthusiast hurried over to Paris, and was just in time to be too late. The Revolution was over. The German poet Herwegh had got into his poetic head a scheme to form a regiment out of the German workers living in Paris, who were to march into Germany and found a Republic. As showing the political foresight of Marx and Engels, as a single instance out of the innumerable instances of that singular political foresight, it should be noted that both Marx and Engels had strongly disapproved of this plan as playing with revolution. However, Liebknecht was young then, and he went in for it. Fortunately for him, illness prevented him from going with the poetic regiment, which was completely routed by the Würtemburg troops at Nieder Offenbach on the Rhine. Herwegh fled to Zürich, and Liebknecht followed him there.

The next playing with revolution was Struve’s attempt to get together troops in Switzerland, who were also to cross the frontier and found Republics. Struve started bravely enough with a flag and a dozen or so of men at Lauffen, on the Swiss Rhine. In three days he had a considerable force. Liebknecht, who had joined him, was sent south across the Oberland to bring up another detachment. On his way, he heard that Struve had been decoyed into the plains by the orthodox soldiers, beaten, and taken prisoner. Liebknecht could easily have made his escape, but he pressed across the Rhine into Germany, and was caught for his pains at Freiburg. For nine months he lay in prison without a trial, whilst the authorities were concocting charges by virtue or by vice of which criminal and not merely political offences were to be laid against him. But a day or two before his trial the orthodox soldiers were found fraternising with the people, and the Grand Duke of Baden had run away. Under these trying circumstances, an acquittal at the trial was certain.

Then, instead of wisely getting away, our enthusiast made a hopeless attempt to win over a Würtemburg regiment bodily to the side of the people, was as nearly as possible re-arrested, and had to get off to Baden. There the precious Committee, with the equally precious Brentano at its head, was sitting. For the nature and actions of this Committee the reader is referred to Karl Marx’ work just published, on “Germany in 1848.” Liebknecht, after a passionate interview with Brentano, made up his mind that this worthy was secretly intriguing with the reaction, and he told Struve and Johann Philip Becker, his elders, of his belief. They, however, did not share it at that time, and in a few days he was arrested again, and his cutlass and pocket-knife taken from him, as the bold Brentano for two whole days affirmed, or swore, perhaps, that these deadly weapons were intended for him. At the expiration of the two whole days, Liebknecht was set free, just in time to take his share in the actual physical fighting in Baden. When our English audiences see and hear this pleasant, genial, benignant old gentleman, they will hardly believe that in 1848 he was bombardier in the battery of Becker. When the “Rebels” were defeated, Liebknecht made his way again into the sanctuary of Switzerland. This time to French Switzerland and Geneva. There he met for the first time Frederick Engels, who in the same warfare had served as an adjutant in Willich’s volunteers.

The German Swiss Trade Union movement was at that time moving vigorously. Liebknecht tried to unify the trade unions on the basis of a Socialist programme. It was proposed to hold a Congress at Murten or Morat on Lake Morat. This gave the necessary pretext to the authorities, who straightaway arrested Liebknecht again. This time they determined to get rid of him thoroughly, so he was carried to the French frontier by the Swiss police, handed over to the French police, escorted by them through France, and seen safely into a ship and packed off to England like a bale of contraband goods. This took place in February, 1850. Arrived in London, he for the first time made the personal acquaintance of Karl Marx and his family, and was an intimate and daily visitor at the rooms in Dean Street, Soho, nearly opposite the present Royalty Theatre, in which Marx was writing the “Kritik” and “The 18th Brumaire.” Afterwards when times bettered a little, the Marx family moved to Grafton Terrace, Haverstock Hill, and Liebknecht with his belongings lived almost opposite the Mother Shipton in that neighbourhood. It is worth noticing, as showing Liebknecht’s kindness and self-sacrifice that on one occasion — an occasion never forgotten by Marx — when Marx’s wife was down with small-pox, Liebknecht, although he had a child of his own, took the Marx’s children into his house.

In those days Liebknecht was very straightened in his means. What little he possessed had been confiscated, and although he had a little newspaper correspondent work, most of the thirteen years that he lived in England were years of hunger, and all of them were years of sorrow. During that time he joined the celebrated Communist League.

In 1862, on the accession of William III., there was an amnesty for political offenders, and Liebknecht returned to work upon the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. Ostensibly this paper was to attack Napoleon. Its editor, August Brass, wanted Liebknecht to write extreme articles to win over the working classes. As a matter of fact, Brass was really working with and for Bismarck, whose astute object in allowing the Liebknecht articles was to get hold of the working classes and use them against the advanced middle class. When Liebknecht found this out, he at once gave up the position, although it was one that secured him against pecuniary difficulties as long as he held it.

About this time, after considerable hesitation, Liebknecht joined the organisation founded by Lassalle, and known as the Allgemeine Deutsche Arbeiter Verein. Lassalle was then, of course, dead, and von Schweitzer was the leader of the party. He had founded a newspaper, the Social-Democrat, to which at first Marx, Engels and Liebknecht contributed. But here also these three writers believed after a time that treachery was again at work, and they all three withdrew from the paper. In the year 1865, Liebknecht was again banished from Berlin and Prussia. He went to Hanover and then to Leipzig. In Leipzig he met Bebel for the first time, and from their meeting and the work done by them and others dates the commencement of the formation of the present immensely powerful German Social-Democratic Party. The trade unions in Saxony were growing greatly in strength, and between them, Bebel and Liebknecht on the one hand, and the Lassallean party on the other, there was conflict. When the war of 1866 between Prussia and Austria broke out, the workers’ unions of Saxony, led by Liebknecht and Bebel, declared, most unpatriotically and most socialistically, against Bismarck and Prussia. About this time Liebknecht and his friends managed to get hold of a Leipzig paper, the Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, which was promptly suppressed.

In 1866 again, August, a Congress was held at Chemnitz between the Saxony unions and the Lassalleans. This Congress accepted a more or less Socialist programme which had been drawn up by Liebknecht. One of the results of the Congress was the formation of the Saxony Volkspartei (People’s Party). This Volkspartei had a short life, for the good and sufficient reason that in 1868, at the Eisenach Congress of the anti-Lassalleans, the great Social-Democratic Party of Germany was founded. This at once absorbed the Saxony Volkspartei, and has since absorbed all other sectarian organisations.

In February, 1867, took place the elections for the North German Parliament. Although Liebknecht was a candidate in the 19th Saxony district, embracing the towns of Stollberg, Lugau and Schneeberg, he could not take part in the election owing to the little accident that he was undergoing three months’ imprisonment. This particular imprisonment was due to the fact that when, after the Prussian and Austrian war, an amnesty for political offenders was declared, he thought the amnesty covered him, and went to Berlin to arrange certain business matters. Consequence — arrest, and three months’ imprisonment. Further consequence — failure at the elections. A failure atoned for in September of the same year when he was elected. In January, 1868, the organ of the party, the Democratische Wochenblatt, was founded, and Liebknecht was made the editor of it at the princely salary of thirty shillings a month. Then followed more strife with the Lassalleans, ending ultimately in the chief of them coming over to the new Social-Democratic Party.

In September, 1869, Liebknecht, who was a member of the “International,” was sent as a delegate to the International Congress at Basel. There he had a brave fight for his resolution in favour of the abolition of private property in all the means of production and exchange. His little work on the land question, written about this time, is still of great value on this subject.

The Democratische Wochenblatt became the enlarged Volkstatt, appearing three times a week, and Liebknecht was still the editor. Not very long after its starting occured the Franco-German war of 1870-1. Here Liebknecht, along with Bebel and others, both in the newspapers and in the German Parliament, raised their voices fearlessly against the iniquity of the war on both sides. They pointed out that the workers of France and the workers of Germany had no quarrel, and they protested against the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Both Liebknecht and Bebel believe to this hour that their arrest, which followed hard upon these their righteous denunciations, was prompted from the King and Bismarck, then at Versailles. Anyhow, they were arrested on the 17th of December, 1870, on the charge of preparation for high treason. With them was arrested [Adolf] Hepner, one of their fellow workers on the Volkstatt. The arrest and the trial both took place at Leipzig. The trial, however, not until three months after the arrest, i.e., on the 28th of March, 1871. Their sentence was two years, and the three and a half months that they had been lying under arrest was mercifully counted as part of the two years, but only as equivalent to two months. As Bebel has written of this trial: “The trial itself in which Liebknecht appeared as the chief accused, was, as far as the party was concerned the most splendid means of agitation we could have wished for, and the effect it produced was worth all that we had to undergo.”

After his release Liebknecht was the chief instrument in bringing about the Congress of 1875 at Gotha, where the final and complete union between the Lassalleans and the Eisenachers, as the others have been called, took place. From that time forward there was only one Party in Germany, the Socialist Workers’ Party, and the Volkstatt became the Vorwärts, with Liebknecht still its chief editor, although [Wilhelm] Hasenclever was associated with him. In 1878 Bismark made his celebrated attempt and his most ignominious failure; the anti-Socialist law. That lasted twelve years, up to 1890. During those twelve years Liebknecht was obliged to live at a little village called Borsdorf, separated from his wife and children. What a failure the anti-Socialist law was — how during the time of it and in consequence of it the strength of the party grew by leaps and bounds — all the world knows now. And it is admitted on all hands that one of the greatest causes of that failure, so ignominious and so complete, was Liebknecht. Hear again what Bebel says: “How this attempt (to break up the German Social-Democracy) failed, everyone knows. But that it failed to do this, Liebknecht has contributed to most efficiently.”

Liebknecht’s work during the last five or six years is so well known to every student of the movement and is, indeed, so well known to every ordinary reader of the newspapers, that nothing more need be said in this connection. But not everyone knows the real strength and significance of the party that he has helped to build up. It is quite impossible to give anything like full details of that strength. But one or two points may be mentioned as illustrative. At the present moment in actual strength of votes the German Social-Democratic Party, with its million and a half of voters, which promises to be two millions in a very short time, is by far the strongest political party in the empire of Germany. The Centre, or Roman Catholic Party, ranks next. There are 47 Socialist members in the German Parliament. In the six divisions of Berlin, five were won by the Socialists, and the sixth was nearly won. In one of the divisions Fischer beat the advanced politician, and well-known scientific man, Virchow. As to the main kingdoms and principalities of Germany, the Socialists are now represented in Parliament in all of them but Prussia, where the infamous three class system of voting obtains. This system the German Government are anxious to introduce into Saxony, as it plays dead into the hands of reaction. The 47 members by no manner of means represent the number of Socialist members that there ought to be in proportion to the votes given. If such a proportion really existed the 47 would be about a hundred. But the most interesting thing in respect to the Social-Democratic vote in Germany is its steady increase, election after election. It is again, of course impossible to give anything like the whole of the figures. But we may give them, say, for four of the large towns and for one of the States:[a]

Notice especially the growth between 1878 and 1890, i.e., during the twelve years of the anti-Socialist persecution. As an example of the growth of the Party in the States as well as in the towns, we take the agricultural and, indeed, feudal, district of Pomerania. There the figures run:

The only other example for which we have space is that of the Socialist press in Germany. There are altogether 133 Socialist and trade union papers, and it must be remembered that the German trade unions are all really socialistic, and not merely passers of mere sentimental resolutions. There are 41 daily political papers, always managed, like the rest of the 133, by the party, and not run by any individual. The two most important of these — the Vorwärts and Hamburger Echo, each sold at less than one halfpenny apiece — are printed by compositors who only work eight hours a day, and receive the highest rate of wages, and all the contributors and correspondents are paid. Out of these two papers alone some £4,000 was made for the party last year.

In conclusion, let us return for a moment to the man who has done so much to make the great German Social-Democratic Party what it is. In estimating him and his works, no words of ours could be better than those written in the Vorwärts, and those written by Bebel in the Neue Zeit. The Vorwärts says:— “Everyone knows that Liebknecht’s name is most intimately interwoven with the history of the German Social-Democracy; that he has devoted to it his whole knowledge, the whole strength of his mind and will, his inflexible courage, and that he, up to the very present hour, is ceaselessly working for it with the written and the spoken word, in newspapers and pamphlets, as teacher in the schools of Social-Democracy, as agitator and speaker at meetings, Congresses, and Parliament. . . . Strong and elastic as steel, fresh in spirit as a young man, full of confidence in the final victory of Social-Democracy, and as joyous in the fight as ever, thus appears to-day the seventy years old veteran of the German Workers’ battalions.” Finally, this is how his friend and fellow-worker Bebel speaks of him, who, after the death of Frederick Engels, is the veteran of the party, and is the last and only one of its original leaders that stood by its cradle. “He embodies in his own person its long years of fight and their consequences, but also embodies in his own person the victory and growth of that party. . . . He has always in those fights stood as a brave soldier in the foremost ranks. . . . With unbroken activity he has dedicated himself, both in speech and writing, to agitation with a zeal that throws us younger men into the shade. To-day the seventy-year-old man stands before us, unbroken in body and spirit, as one who, in the words of Schiller, has done the best work of his time. . . . The seventieth birthday of Wilhelm Liebknecht is not only a day of honour for him, but also for the party which honours itself most in honouring him.”

Transcriber’s Note

a. This information was originally presented as a written list; I have arranged it as a table for clarity.

Edward Aveling Archive