Spartacist Uprising

The Spartacist Uprising was a short-lived episode in post-WWI Germany, an attempt to overthrow the government that ended in bloodshed. Today the figure of Rosa Luxemburg is seen as a symbol of left-wing revolution. But what happened? Why has she depicted the way she is and why was she executed? Let's explore!

Spartacist Uprising Leaders

Karl Liebknecht

The scenario pleased Marxist leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, who anticipated that the Russian revolution would spread to Germany and the rest of Europe. Liebknecht, who aspired to be the German Lenin, was a left-wing lawyer who was the sole member of the Reichstag to vote against German engagement in the war in 1914.

At the end of that year, he created the Spartacist League with Rosa Luxemburg and others. They named the new organisation after the gladiator Spartacus, the leader of a slave insurrection that challenged Roman authority in the first century BC.

The group's booklets were swiftly deemed illegal, and Liebknecht was dispatched to the eastern front, where he refused to fight and instead spent his time burying the dead. He was soon allowed to return to Berlin, where he was sent to prison for treason following the Spartacist demonstration that took place in the city in 1916.

Fig. 1: Karl Liebknecht

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg, the daughter of a Polish Jewish family, was engaged in Polish left-wing politics as a teenager but spent most of her adult life in Germany, where she was imprisoned numerous times for opposing the war and advocating for a general strike. She was known as 'Junius' in Spartacist writings, after Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Roman Republic circa 500 BC.

Luxemburg, like Liebknecht, was imprisoned for treason in 1916. However, she disagreed with him about the Bolsheviks and advocated for a proletarian dictatorship. In 1918, she and Liebknecht were both freed from prison and together founded a newspaper agency by the name of Rote Fahne (Red Flag).

Fig. 2: Flag of the KPD

By the end of that very year, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD - Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands) was founded which united the Spartacist League, Communists and Socialists, together. Very soon the number of members of the KPD surpassed 400,000, a number that very quickly brought massive political attention to the party. The leaders of this new party were Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

Fig. 3: Rosa Luxemburg

Spartacist Uprising 1919

Causes of the Spartacist Uprising

On January 4th 1919, Chancellor Friedrich Ebert sacked Emil Eichhorn, chief of the Berlin police. Ebert wanted a new chief of the Berlin police to be a member of the Social Democratic Party, the party he also was a member of. Eichhorn was a very popular figure in Berlin and enjoyed great approval from the public. Because of Ebert's move to sack such a beloved figure, protests broke out in the streets of Berlin. At its height on January 6th, the protest had reached over 100,000 workers who had gone on strike.

Realizing that this was a good moment for action, the Spartacist League took the opportunity to join the protest and bring down the government. During the strike, the Spartacists seized numerous key governmental buildings.

With massive popular discontent rising, and with no plausible peaceful end in sight, Ebert decided to use force to disband the protestors. In the beginning, it was decided to use the German armed forces. However, this plan proved futile as the German army was too weak and demotivated to put down a domestic riot. This plan was laid to rest.

Nevertheless, Ebert needed some way of ensuring that this protest did not evolve into something far more dangerous. His solution was to use the Freikorps (free regiments). The Freikorps were mostly made up of soldiers who had been decommissioned towards the end of the First World War. However, these ex-soldiers were allowed to keep their weapons. Ultimately these former soldiers made up the Freikorps and operated as a voluntary armed militia.

Fig. 4: Chancellor Friedrich Ebert

Equipped with military firepower such as machine guns and hand grenades, the Freikorps cleared the city and retook many buildings occupied by the protestors and the Spartacist League. The militia was met with fierce violence from the protestors in the streets, as a result, many both violent and non-violent demonstrators were killed.

Eventually, both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht began doubting the possibility of overthrowing the Weimar Government. On January 15th, both Luxemburg and Liebknecht were seized by the Freikorps and summarily executed. Liebknecht was shot in the head and taken then taken to the morgue. While Luxemburg was struck in the head with a rifle butt, smashing her skull and killing her instantly. She was then shot in the head and her body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal.

Fig. 5: Freikorps in Berlin.