Wilhelm Liebknecht
1826 — 1900
Biography
We Social Democrats dare not be like the other parties,
all of whom are equally guilty of the injustices of the present system and equally responsible for them.
Every one who suffers under these injustices looks to us for deliverance.
Every one of us has had these victims of society, after failing to get justice from the courts, from the government,
from the Emperor himself, and from all the other parties, come to us as the last and only ones that can help them.
They do not know our scientific program; they do not know what capital and capitalism mean;
but they have the belief, the feeling, that we are a party that can help when all other parties fail.
This belief is for us an inexhaustible source of power.
From No Compromise — No Political Trading (1899)
Works:
1865: Report on the Working-Class Movement in Germany
1869: On the Political Position of Social-Democracy (speech)
Abridged alternate translation: The Elections to Parliament are only a Means of Agitation
1870: The Reichstag Farce (speech)
1870: The Battlefield, Not the Reichstag, is the Final Court of Judgment (fragment)
1871: Yes, We Want to Destroy Your Culture (speech)
1872: Knowledge is Power – Power is Knowledge (excerpts)
The Bourgeoisie and its Civilization
1872: Speech Intended to be Delivered before the Jurors in the Leipzig Trial for High Treason
1872: A Soldier of the Revolution (speech)
Alternate excerpt: A Fragment of Autobiography
1874: Liebknecht’s First Speech in the German Reichstag
1875: Manifesto of the Gotha Program
1878: Liberty has Been Outlawed Together with Us (speech)
1881: To the Tuileries: 10th August, 1792
1883: Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx
1883: The Spider and the Fly
1886: On the Deportation of Poles from Prussia
1889: On the Political Position of Social-Democracy (pamphlet) 📖
1889: Speeches delivered at the Founding Congress of the Second International
A Global Workingmen’s Parliament
1891: The Eighteenth of March (speech)
1891: Exposition of the Erfurt Program (speech)
1893: We Are a Revolutionary Party (fragment)
1893: Not a Man and Not a Penny for this System! (speech)
1895: The Programme of German Socialism
1895: A Bad Quarter of an Hour
1895: On May Day ✉
1895: Preface to Eleanor Marx’s The Working Class Movement in England
1895: Lèse Majéste (speech)
1896: Karl Marx: Biographical Memoirs 📖
1957 alternate translation: Reminiscences of Karl Marx (PDF) 📖
1896: Protest Against the Kaiser’s Tyranny ✉
1896: The Present Position of the Socialist Movement in Germany (Report on Public Lecture in Britain)
1896: A Message From Liebknecht ✉
1896: Our Recent Congress
1896: Statement on Armenia
1897: Reminiscences of Engels
1897: Crete and Social-Democracy
1897: The First of May in Germany
1898: The Future State
1898: May Day in Germany
1898: Social-Democracy in Germany: On the elections ✉
1898: The German Elections
1898: International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress (with Paul Singer) ✉
1898: Eleanor Marx (obituary)
1899: To my friends in England
1899: No Compromise – No Political Trading 📖
1900: Beware of Imperialism and Militarism ✉
1900: To the Editor of The Clarion ✉
1900: On Militarism
1900: Breakers Ahead
1901: How it could be done (posthumous publication)
Mini-collection: Socialism: What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish 📖
Collection: Voices of Revolt: Speeches of Wilhelm Liebknecht 📖
Writings about Wilhelm Liebknecht:
1886: News Reports on Wilhelm Liebknecht’s Trip to the United States
1896: Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Social-Democratic Movement in Germany, by Edward Aveling
1896: Wilhelm Liebknecht, The Veteran Leader of the German Socialists, by Edith Sellers
1896: Enthusiastic Liebknecht Demonstration (Report on Public Lecture in Britain)
1896: The Present Position of the Socialist Movement in Germany (Report on Public Lecture in Britain)
1900: William Liebknecht, obituary by Daniel De Leon (PDF)
1900: Speech at the Funeral of Wilhelm Liebknecht, by August Bebel
1900: Wilhelm Liebknecht, the People’s Tribune, obituary by Eugene V. Debs (PDF)
1900: Wilhelm Liebknecht, personal sketch by Charlotte Teller
1900: Wilhelm Liebknecht, obituary by Jacques Bonhomme with translated ephemera by Liebknecht
1900: The Soldier, poem by Frank Colebrook
1910: From August Bebel’s memoirs
1911: From H.M. Hyndman’s memoirs
1918: From Eduard Bernstein’s memoirs
1925: Introduction to Speeches of Wilhelm Liebknecht, by Kurt Kersten