Karl Liebknecht

In Spite of Everything!

Written: January 15th, 1919.

Source: Die Rote Fahne [1]

Online Version: http://zefys.staatsbibliothek-berlin.de/kalender/auswahl/date/1919-01-

Translated from German: Schummelpilz, Lena, TrebyC, CloseToBeGood,

Redaction and Markup: Luka, Schummelpilz

Editors’ Note: This pamphlet, originally titled “Trotz Alledem!” is the last ever pamphlet by Karl Liebknecht,
written hours before his murder by the proto-fascist Freikorps (at the behest of Ebert and Noske). It is a
supplement to Rosa Luxemburg’s “Order Prevails in Berlin” (also written hours before her murder), even though
the latter was published a day later. The pamphlet is a response to the suppression of the Spartacist uprising in
Berlin at the beginning of 1919, which ended with a brutal defeat and the assassination of their ideological
leaders. It provides the historical context for the uprising, a report on the ongoing operations to put down the
revolt, the conditions that led to its defeat, and the logical conclusion of the situation. This work should be very
carefully studied by anyone, who wishes to understand the full depth and tragedy of the German Revolution.

We have maintained the original phraseology, terminology and layout of the pamphlet to the best of our abilities.
However, the footnotes are wholly ours and simply serve to inform the reader of the context. Liebknecht uses a lot
of allegorical language, theological and mythological references, hence a special attention should be paid to
capitalizations.

General Assault on Spartacus! “Down with the Spartacists!” they howl through the
alleys. “Grab them, whip them, stab them, shoot them, impale them, trample them down,
tear them to shreds!” Atrocities are being committed, eclipsing the Belgian atrocities of the
German troops.

“Spartacus crushed!” they jubilate from “Post” to “Vorwärts.” [2]

“Spartacus crushed!” And the sabres, the revolvers and carbines of the re-established
Old-Germanic police and the disarmament of the revolutionary workers will seal its defeat.
“Spartacus crushed!” Under the bayonets of Lieutenant Reinhardt [3], under the machine
guns and canons of General Lüttwitz [4] is the election of the national assembly to be carried
out – a plebiscite for Napoleon-Ebert.

“Spartacus crushed!”

Indeed! The revolutionary workers of Berlin have been defeated! Indeed! A hundred
of their best have been murdered! Indeed! Several hundred have been thrown into prison.

Indeed! They were defeated. Because they were abandoned by the sailors, the
soldiers, the security forces, the army, on whose help they had relied. And their force was
paralyzed by the indecisiveness and weakness of their leaders. And the unimaginable
counterrevolutionary sludge-flood of reactionaries and the owning classes drowned them.
 Indeed, they were defeated. And it was a historical commandment that they were
defeated. For the time wasn’t yet ripe. Nevertheless – the fight was inevitable. Because giving
up without a fight the police headquarters, this Palladium of the revolution, to Eugen Ernst
[5] and Hirsch [6], would have been a dishonourable defeat. The fight was forced onto the
Proletariat by the Ebert-Gang; and elementary violence rushed out from within Berlin's
masses – beyond all doubts and worries.

Indeed! Berlin’s revolutionary workers were defeated!

And Ebert-Scheidemann-Noske have won. They have won, because the generals, the
bureaucracy, the robber barons and country squires [7], the clerics and the money-bags, and
everyone who is small-minded and reactionary stands with them. And won for them with
ammunition, gas bombs, and mortars.

But there are defeats, which are victories; and victories more pernicious than defeats.

The defeated of the bloody week of January have persisted gloriously; they have
fought for something great, for the noblest goal of the suffering mankind, for spiritual and
material salvation of the languishing masses; they have spilled their Holy Blood for a sacred
feat, and their blood was thereby sanctified. And from every drop of this blood, from these
dragon’s teeth sown for the victors of today, will the avengers for the fallen rise - from every
ripped fibre new soldiers will rise for the great cause, which is eternal and unwithering like
the firmament.

Those who are defeated today will be the victors tomorrow. Because defeat serves as a
lesson. Still, the German proletariat lacks revolutionary experience. And only through
tentative tries, adolescent errors and painful setbacks can it obtain practical education,
which will ensure future victory.

For the living forces of the social revolution, whose unstoppable growth is the natural
law of societal development, a defeat means stimulus. And through defeat after defeat, their
road leads to victory.

But the victors of today?

For a nefarious cause they perform their nefarious labour of bloodshed. For the
powers of the past, for the mortal enemies of the proletariat.

And even today they are inferior! For they are today already the hostages of those,
who they sought to use as their tools and whose tools they have ever been.

Still they give the firm its name. But only a short reprieve remains for them.

Already they stand in the pillory of history. Never had there been such Judases like them in
the world, who not only betrayed their most Sacred, but also nailed it to the cross with their
own hands. As the German Social-Democracy committed a greater treason than any other in
August of 1914, now, during the dawn of social revolution, it paints an abhorrent picture.

The French bourgeoisie had to take the butchers of June, 1848 and the butchers of
May, l871 from their own ranks. The German bourgeoisie needn't bother itself – “Social-
democrats” fulfil the dirty and the despicable, the bloody and the cowardly deed; their
Cavaignac, their Gallifet is named Noske, the “German worker.”

The ringing of bells called to the slaughter, music and swivel of cloth, cheer and
triumph of the capitalists rescued from the “Bolshevik terror” celebrates the band of
unrestrained soldiers coming to their rescue. Still the gunpowder is smoking, still the fire of
the butchery of workers is smouldering, still the murdered lie on the ground, still the
wounded proletarians are moaning, as they hold a parade over the murderous troops,
bloated in victorious pride - Ebert, Schneiderman and Noske.

Dragon’s teeth sown! Already the proletariat of the world quaveringly turns away
from those, who dare to reach out with their hands, steaming from the blood of German
workers, towards the International! With repugnance and disgust they are rebuffed even by
those who in the raging of the World War betrayed the obligations of socialism. Stained,
excluded from the ranks of the upright mankind, flagellated forth from the International,
hated and cursed by every revolutionary proletarian - like this they stand before the world.

And the whole of Germany has been cast into shame by them. Brother-traitors are
reigning over the German people, brother-murderers. “Give me the slate! I have to write it.”

Oh, their glory cannot last for long; one reprieve, and they will be executed.

Fire blazes hurl their theses into a million hearts, fire blazes of indignation.

The proletarian revolution, which the counter-revolutionaries hoped to drown in

The defeated of today, they have learned. They are cured of the delusion, to find their
salvation in the help of masses of troops soldiers; cured of the delusion of being able to trust
in leaders, who prove themselves feeble and impotent; cured of the belief in independent
social democracy, which disdainfully left them behind. Left only to their own devices, they
will fight their coming battles, gain their coming victories. And the Word, that the liberation
of the working class must be the work of the working class itself, has gained for them -
through the bitter lessons of this week - a new, deeper meaning.

And even the misguided soldiers will soon enough realize what game is being played
with them, when they feel the lashes of the restored militarism pressing down; even they will
awake from the frenzy, which clasps them today.

“Spartacus crushed!”

Steady! We have not fled, we are not beaten, and even should they throw us in
shackles – we are there, and shall remain! And victory will be ours.

Because Spartacus – that means: fire and spirit, it means: soul and heart, it means:
will and act of the proletarian revolution. And Spartacus – that means all the hardships and
yearnings for happiness, all fighting-resolve the class-conscious proletariat. Because
Spartacus – that means: Socialism and World Revolution.

Still the Way to Calvary of the German working class is not finished – but their Day of
Salvation is near. The Judgement Day for the Ebert-Scheidemann-Noske and for the
capitalist rulers, that still to this day hide behind them. Sky-high beat the billows of events –
we are used to them, to being catapulted down from the peak into the depths. But our ship
sails with a straight course, strong and proud towards its goal.

And whether we’ll still live when that is reached – our programme will live; it will rule
the world of mankind redeemed. In spite of everything!

Under the roar of the approaching economic crash will the hordes of proletarians
awake as if from the trombones of the Last Judgement, and the corpses of the murdered
fighters will be resurrected and face reckoning before the damned. Today, still the
subterranean growling of the volcano – will erupt tomorrow and bury them all in glowing
ash and lava rivers.

Karl Liebknecht

Footnotes

1. Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag) was a German newspaper originally founded in 1876 by Socialist Worker's
party leader Wilhelm Hasselmann, and which has since been published on and off, at times underground by
German Socialists and Communists. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg famously published it in 1918 as an
organ of the Spartacus League. Following the deaths of Liebknecht and Luxemburg during the chancellorship of
the Social Democratic Party of Germany's Friedrich Ebert, the newspaper was published, with interruptions, by
the Communist Party of Germany.

2. German Newspapers. Vorwärts (Forward, founded in 1876) is especially significant, as it was the central
organ of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) for many decades.

3. Walther Gustav Reinhardt (24 March 1872 in Stuttgart – 8 August 1930 in Berlin) was a German officer
who served as the last Prussian Minister of War and the first head of the army command (Chef der Heeresleitung)
within the newly created Ministry of the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic. During the Kapp Putsch of 1920,
Reinhardt remained loyal to the elected government and was one of the few senior officers of the Reichswehr
willing to order troops to fire at the revolting units.

4. Walther Karl Friedrich Ernst Emil Freiherr von Lüttwitz (2 February 1859 – 20 September 1942) was
a German general who fought in World War I. Lüttwitz is best known for being the driving force behind the
Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch of 1920 which attempted to replace the democratic government of the Weimar Republic
with a military dictatorship.

5. Eugen Oswald Gustav Ernst (20 September 1864 – 31 May 1954) was a German Social Democrat politician.
His appointment as President of the Police of Berlin in January 1919 prompted the Spartacist uprising in Berlin.

6. Paul Hirsch (17 November 1868 – 1 August 1940) was a German politician and a member of the Social
Democratic Party who served as Prime Minister of Prussia from 1918 to 1920. During the German Revolution of
1918–19, Hirsch together with the USPD politician Heinrich Ströbel became chairman of the provisional
government of the Free State of Prussia (Rat der Volksbeauftragten) and also served as Interior Minister. On 4
January 1919 he dismissed the USPD chief of police Emil Eichhorn, which sparked the Spartacist uprising.

7. “Junker von Schlot und Kraut” (lit. Squires Chimney and Cabbage) from “Schlotbaron” (lit. smokestack baron)
and “Krautjunker” (lit. cabbage squire) is a historical derogatory term referring to urban industrialists and landed
gentry respectively.