Rosa Luxemburg — The Usual Game

While the German revolution is raging on, Rosa Luxemburg polemicizes against the dirty attempts by the bourgeoisie to besmirch and demean the Spartacus movement, through which the counterrevolution attempts to halt the marching workers — “By killing Spartacus they try to kill the proletarian revolution itself!”

Published as “Das alte Spiel” in Die Rote Fahne, no. 3, November 18, 1918.

Rosa Luxemburg — The Usual Game

“Liebknecht has murdered two hundred officers in Spandau.”

“Liebknecht has been murdered in Spandau.”

“The Spartacus gang stormed the Marstall.” [1]

“The Spartacus gang tried to enter the Berliner Tageblatt offices with machine guns.”

“Liebknecht loots stores.”

“Liebknecht distributes money among the soldiers to entice them to counterrevolutionary action.”

Spartacus members were heading to the House of Representatives where a meeting of the Fortschrittliche Volkspartei took place. [2] When the assembly heard of this, panic broke out and everyone rushed away to escape the apparently imminent atrocities, leaving behind heats, umbrellas, and other valuable items that are very hard to replace these days.

For a few weeks, the wildest rumors have been spreading about our group in Berlin. Whenever a window breaks or a tire bursts, every philistine’s hair stands on end and shivers run down his spine because he knows that the “Spartacus gang” is coming!

Various people have addressed Liebknecht with the touching request to spare their marital partners, nephews, or aunts from the child murder of Bethlehemian dimensions that the Spartacus folks are supposedly preparing. These are true stories from the first month of the German Revolution.

Who does not think of the delightful scene in The Magic Flute, when the rascal Monostatos, startled by Papageno’s shadow, sings full of fear:

Hu! that is the devil, certainly!

Hu! that is the devil, certainly!

If I were a mouse,

How I would like to hide myself!

Were I as small as snails,

Then I would creep into my House! [3]

The most disturbing aspect of all these wild rumors, ridiculous fantasies, crazy fairy tales, and shameless lies is that they belong to an orchestrated campaign. The slander against the Spartacists follows a careful plan. The rumors are fabricated purposefully and fed to the public with the intention to spread panic, to confuse the citizens, to intimidate and mislead the workers and soldiers, and to create a mood that allows pogroms against the Spartacists in order to stop us before we have even had the chance to present our politics and our goals to the masses.

This is an old game. We all remember the mad tales about golden automobiles, French airplanes, poisoned wells, and pierced-out eyes that were intentionally spread by the agents of the warmongers four years ago, at the outbreak of the war, to instill blind nationalist hatred among the workers soon used as cannon fodder. Today, we see the same with respect to the Spartacists. The people are misled and incited to hatred so that they will turn against the Spartacists with neither hesitation nor conscience.

We know how it works and we know who is responsible. It is the dependent social democrats, [4] a Scheidemann, an Ebert, an Otto Braun, a Bauer, a Legien, and a Baumeister, [5] who consciously poison public opinion with shameless lies and who mobilize the people against us because they — rightfully! — fear our critique. Only one week before the revolution, these people denounced the idea of a revolution in Germany as a crime, as adventurism, as “putschism,” claiming that Germany already was a democracy since Prince Max was chancellor and Scheidemann was allowed to don a ministerial suit next to Erzberger. Today, the same people explain to the masses that the revolution is already over, that its goals have already been achieved. Their intention is to sabotage any further revolutionary progress and to protect bourgeois property and capitalist exploitation. This is the “order” and the “calm” they claim to defend against us. And this is what the slander is all about. It is the reason why these men are so afraid of us and, in turn, have so much hatred for us. They know perfectly well that we do not loot stores but reject capitalist private property; that we do not storm the Marstall or the House of Representatives but intend to smash the class rule of the bourgeoisie; that we do not murder but want to push the revolution forward uncompromisingly in the interest of the workers. They distort our socialist goals consciously, turning them into lumpenproletarian adventures. All this to mislead the masses. They speak of coups, assassinations, and similar nonsense when we speak of socialism. By killing Spartacus they try to kill the proletarian revolution itself!

However, they will fail. We will not let them silence us. Maybe they manage to mobilize some confused workers and soldiers against us. Maybe counterrevolutionary attacks even put us back in the dungeons that we have just left. But the iron march of the revolution cannot be stopped.

We will let our voices be heard and the masses will understand us and they will turn with special anger against those trying to incite pogroms with lies. And the target of their anger will not be the Marstall, a store, or a philistine but you, the former allies of bourgeois reactionaries and of Prince Max, the protectors of capitalist exploitation, the outposts of the counterrevolution: wolves in sheeps’ clothing! [6]

Footnotes

[1] The royal stable in Berlin; served as an administrative center during the revolution.

[2] “Progressive People’s Party,” a liberal party existing from 1910 to 1918. This must have been among the last official meetings. In late 1918, the party united with the left wing of the Nationalliberale Partei [National Liberal Party] to form the Deutsche Demokratische Partei [German Democratic Party], which would play an important role in the Weimar Republic.

[3] The quote combines different lines from the opera libretto.

[4] Derogatory wordplay referring to the SPD, which is compared to the “independent social democrats,” the USPD.

[5] Otto Braun (1872–1955), Gustav Bauer (1870–1944), and Konstantin Baumeister (1887– 1962), influential SPD politicians during the revolutionary period; Scheidemann, Ebert, and Legien are listed under “Personalities” in the Glossary.

[6] The translation comes from “From All Power to the Councils! A Documentary History of the German Revolution of 1918–1919” by Gabriel Kuhn — Ed.