~
Karl Liebknecht
Introduction by Dimitrios Roussopoulos
“What is essential about the causes of war... is the fight for spoils, for profit between
the capitalist classes of the world powers.” War, according to Karl Liebknecht, profits
none but these, and the maintenance of an army insures their retention of power. In
this book, which is one of the great classics of anti-militarism, Liebknecht opposes
militarism, but from a Democratic point of view. He sees militarism as the enemy
of democracy.
Karl Liebknecht was a leader of the German Social Democratic Party.
When this book was published Liebknecht was tried and found guilty of high treason.
The book was confiscated and an order given to destroy the plates from which it had
been printed. Later, as a member of the German Reichstag, Liebknecht again agitated
against militarism and refused to support the First World War; he was punished by
being drafted into the army. In 1916 he was arrested for “attempted treason” and
“aggravated disobedience.” His crime was to have addressed a demonstration, in full
military uniform (since he was still in the army), with these words: “Our enemies are
not the English, French or Russian workers, but the German landed proprietors, the
German capitalists and their executive committee, the government.”
Montreal/New York/London
www.blackrosebooks.net
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-55164-340-3
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-55164-341-0
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-55164-365-6
Militarism and Anti-Militarism
Liebknecht examines all the ways in which militarism is promoted and maintained conscription, the drumming up of nationalist feeling, patriotic societies, semi-military
organization of the civilian population, the lure of the uniform and the use of slogans
like “if you want peace, prepare for war.” He discusses brutality in military discipline
and the existence of military law, both of which serve to break the potential spirit
of rebellion in the army. He argues that the very existence of a standing army is a
danger to peace, and reviews the unusually harsh punishments meted out to antimilitarists and resisters. In the second part of the book he surveys the activities of
anti-militarists up to the time he was writing. He discusses both specific tactics and
the underlying philosophy of anti-militarism.
Karl Liebknecht
Militarism and Anti-Militarism
NN 373
Militarism
and
Anti-Militarism
~
Karl Liebknecht
Militarism and Anti-Militarism
~
Karl Liebknecht
Introduction by
Dimitrios Roussopoulos
Montréal/New York/London
Copyright © 2011 Black Rose Books
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means
electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system—without written permission from the publisher, or, in
the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a license from the Canadian
Reprography Collective, with the exception of brief passages quoted by a reviewer in a
newspaper or magazine.
Black Rose Books No. NN 373
National Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data
Liebknecht, Karl Paul August Friedrich, 1871-1919
Militarism and anti-militarism / Karl Liebknecht.
Translation of: Militarismus und Antimilitarismus.
Includes bibliographical references.
Issued also in electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-55164-341-0 (bound).--ISBN 978-1-55164-340-3 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-55164-365-6
1. Militarism. 2. Socialism. I. Title.
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Table of Contents
New Introduction by Dimitrios Roussopoulos
5
Author’s Preface
7
Original Publisher’s Note
11
Part 1 - Militarism
General Remarks about
the Essence and Meaning of Militarism
13
Capitalist Militarism
21
Methods and Effects of Militarism
The Immediate Object
31
Particulars of Some of
the Chief Sins of Militarism
49
Part 2 - Anti-Militarism
Anti-Militarism of the
Old and the New International
87
Anti-Militarism Abroad with
Special Regard to the Young Socialist Organizations
93
Dangers Besetting Anti-Militarism
129
Anti-Militarist Tactics
135
The Need for Special Anti-Militarist Propaganda
151
Anti-Militarism in Germany
and the German Social Democracy
155
The Anti-Militarist Tasks of
the German Social Democracy
163
New Introduction
by Dimitrios Roussopoulos
Karl Liebknecht considered the military as the backbone
of capitalism. Subsequent to events that unfolded in the 20th century, and the
declarations of other insightful people, his assertion was borne to be true many
times over. The republication of this classic “Militarism and Anti-Militarism”
and keeping it in print is an obligation that Black Rose Books happily assumes.
This text is a part of a large critical literature that during many decades and many
wars, small and large, have helped many humanists and anti-war activities.
Militarism, of course, predates capitalism, as does war. A distinction
between the two must always be kept in mind. For Liebknecht capitalist
militarism had a class function. He said:
“Militarism is not only a means of defense against the external
enemy; it has a second task which comes more and more to the
fore as class contradictions become more marked…to uphold the
prevailing order of society, to prop up capitalism and all reaction
against the struggle of the working class for freedom.”
Liebknecht’s lectures were published in book form in 1907. He was
unable to foresee that after 1917, the young Soviet republic and its form of
State socialism or State capitalism would also fall prey to ‘red’ militarism on a
monumental scale, creating what one observer call a ‘stratocracia’. Nor could
Liebknecht foresee that after the de-colonization that took place following
the end of World War II, many national liberation movements boosted their
newly acquired State power with militarism, eagerly buying large amounts of
weapons from the military industries of colonial countries.
Anti-Militarism as a specific critique is opposed to the State’s
monopoly of “legitimate violence”, represented by its control of the police
and all military institutions. It is thus a logical consequence of antiStatism, and vice-versa. Anti-Militarism has an affinity with anarchism.
Militarism in its modern guise is very much the historic achievement of
the rise of the Nation-State in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is France,
under Napoleon that first invented conscription. Several theorists
mistakenly considered that militarism created a sense of nation (as did
JJ Rousseau). Whereas Michel Foucault saw in militarism the discipline
New Introduction
6
that reinforced prisons, schools, hospitals, and ultimately contributing to
the ‘disciplinary society’.
Anti-Militarism has always been based on a focus on the State
and national sovereignty. On the one hand there where the critiques of
Rosa Luxembourg and Lenin under the rubric ‘imperialism’ and on the
other that of US President and former general Eisenhower who in 1961
warned of the influence of the ‘military-industrial complex’ with its links
to industrial power and economics.
The insightfulness of Liebnecht’s text is incomplete however and
is flawed by his lack of understanding of anarchism. His criticism of
anarchism is not well founded. Anarchists would re-work the above quote
to read – Militarism is not only a means of defense against the external
enemy; it has a second task which comes more and more to the fore as
class contradictions become more masked…to uphold the prevailing order,
to prop up capitalism in all its form, market or State capitalism and all
reaction against the struggle for a free and fully democratic society.
After the publication of his celebrated book, Liebknecht was arrested
and imprisoned for 18 months in Glatz. But the following year he was
elected to parliament despite still being in jail. He opposed Germany’s
participation in World War I, and on December 2, 1914 he was the only
member of parliament to vote against further war loans, the supporters of
which included 110 elected members of his own socialist party.
As a member of parliament however he could no longer be arrested.
In an effort to silence him he was conscripted into the military. He
continued to fight against the war nevertheless. On May 1, 1916 he spoke
before a huge anti-war demonstration in Berlin in front of the Kaiser’s
palace. He was in full army uniform as he called upon the German people
to stop the war. “Our enemies,” he called out, “are not the English, French
or Russian workers but the great German landed proprietors, the German
capitalists and their executive committee, the government.”
Karl Liebknecht who was born on August 13, 1871 in Leipzig,
Germany was murdered on January 15, 1919 in Berlin. He was a Marxist
socialist who co-founded with Rosa Luxemburg the Spartacist League
and the German Community Party. He opposed World War I with
everything he had, in the Reichstag parliament and in his role during the
1919 popular uprising. The uprising was crushed by the social democratic
government and paramilitary units formed by war veterans, the Freikorps.
He was assassinated along with Rosa Luxemburg.
This book was translated and published in many countries.
Author’s Preface
A few weeks ago the Grenzbote reported a conversation
which took place between Bismarck and Dr. Otto Kaemmel in October
1892. In this conversation the “Hero of the Century” himself threw off
the mask of constitutionalism with the cynicism peculiar to him. Amongst
other things, Bismarck said,
“He who in Rome put himself outside the pale of the law was
banished (aqua et igni interdictus); in the Middle Ages he was said
to be outlawed. Social Democracy should be similarly treated and
deprived of its political rights. I would have gone to this length.
The Social Democratic question is a military question. At present
Social Democracy is not taken seriously enough; it strives–and
successfully–to win over the non-commissioned officers. In
Hamburg a large portion of the troops already consists of Social
Democrats, for the inhabitants have the right to join the local
battalions only. Suppose these troops should one day refuse to fire
on their fathers and brothers at the Emperor’s order? Should we
have to mobilize the Hanover and Mecklenburg regiments against
Hamburg? We should, in that case, have something like the Paris
Commune. The Emperor took fright. He told me that he did not
wish to be called the “Kartaetschenprinz” (Shrapnel prince) some
day, like his grandfather, and did not wish to “wade up to his ankles
in blood” at the very beginning of his reign. I answered him at the
time, “Your Majesty will have to wade much deeper if you draw
back now”.
“The Social-Democratic question is a military question”. This
puts the whole problem in a nutshell. This expresses more and goes
much deeper than von Massow’s cry of distress, “Our only hope lies
in the bayonets and cannons of our soldiers.1 “The Social-Democratic
question is a military question.” This is now the keynote of all tunes
sung by the firebrands. If there was anyone whose eyes had not yet
been opened by the earlier indiscretions of Bismarck and Puttkamer,
by the speech to the Alexandrians2, the Hamburger Nachrichten and
Author’s Preface
8
the thoroughbred Junker von Oldenburg-Januschau, this would now
be accomplished by the HohenloheDelbrück revelations confirmed
about the end of the year by the county court judge Kulemann, and
by the above heartless words of Bismarck.
“The Social-Democratic question – to the extent that it is a
political question – is in the last resort a military question”. This should
be a constant warning to the Social Democracy and a tactical principle
of first importance.
The enemy at home (Social Democracy) is “more dangerous than
the enemy abroad, because it poisons the soul of our people and wrenches
the weapon from our hands before we have raised it”. Thus the Kreuzzeitung of January 21, 1907, announced that class interests come before
national interests in an electoral fight which was carried on “under the
waving flag of Nationalism”. And over this electoral fight hung the everincreasing menace to the electoral rights and the right of Trade Union
organization, the menace of “Bonaparte’s Sword” which, in his letter of
New Year’s eve Prince Buelow flourished round the heads of the German
Social Democrats in order to intimidate them. This electoral fight was
carried on under the banner of the class struggle at its fiercest.3 Only
one who is blind and deaf could deny that these and many other signs
pointed to a storm, even to a hurricane.
Thus the problem of fighting “militarism at home” has become of
the greatest importance.
The Carnival elections of 1907 were also fought on the nationalist
question, on the colonial question, on Chauvinism and Imperialism.
And they showed, in spite of all this, how miserably small was the
power of resistance of the German people against the pseudo patriotic
traps laid by these despicable business patriots. They taught us what
bombastic demagogy can be employed by the Government, the ruling
classes, and the whole howling pack of “patriots” when the “things they
hold most holy” are concerned. These elections furnished the proletariat
with the necessary enlightenment; they caused it to bethink itself and
taught it the social and political relation of forces. They educated it
and freed it from the unfortunate “habit of victory”. These elections
rendered the proletarian movement more profound by exerting a
desirable pressure on it, and enabled one to understand the psychology
of the masses in regard to national acts. Certainly the causes of our
so-called setback (which, in reality, was no setback, and by which the
victors were more taken aback than the vanquished) were manifold. But
9
Author’s Preface
there is no doubt that just those sections of the proletariat which have
been contaminated and influenced by militarism formed an especially
solid obstacle which prevents the spreading of Social Democracy. They
were, for instance, state workers and lower-grade officials who are at the
mercy of governmental terrorism.
This, too, forces the question of anti-militarism and the question of
the young people’s movement and of their education to the fore; and the
German Labour movement will henceforth certainly pay more attention
to these points.
The following brochure is the enlargement of a paper read by
the author on November 28, 1906, at the Mannheim Conference of
the German Young Socialist organizations. It does not pretend to
offer anything essentially new; it only presumes to be a compilation of
material already known. Nor does it pretend to exhaust the subject. The
author has endeavoured, as far as possible, to collect the disconnected
material scattered in papers and magazines all over the world. And
thanks especially to our Belgian comrade De Man it has been possible
to give a short account of the antimilitarist and Young Socialist
movement in the most important countries.
If mistakes have crept in here and there they should be excused
on account of the difficulty of mastering the material and, frequently, by
reason of the unreliability of the sources of information.
In the realm of militarism many things change quickly at the
present time. What, for instance, is said further on in regard to French
and English military reforms will very soon be rendered out-of-date by
events.
This is still more true of anti-militarism and the proletarian
Young Socialist movement, these latest manifestations of the proletarian
struggle for freedom. They develop quickly everywhere, and one is glad
to see them make headway in spite of setbacks now and then. Since
this brochure was set up in type I have learned that the Finnish Young
Socialist societies held their first congress in Tammersfors, on December
9 and 10, 1906, where a union of youthful workers was founded. Apart
from educating the class-consciousness of youthful workers, the special
object of this union is to fight militarism in all its aspects.
People will be inclined to complain that the theoretical principles
of our work are too briefly stated and their historical depth not sufficiently
probed. In reply to this I must point out that the political aim of this
brochure is to propagate anti-militarist thought.
Author’s Preface
10
Some people again will be dissatisfied with the piling up of
countless details, often seemingly unimportant, especially in regard to
the history of the Young Socialist movement and anti-militarism. This
dissatisfaction may be justified. The author started from the assumption
that only through details is one enabled to see clearly the upward and
downward movement in the development of the organization, the
moulding and changing of the tactical principles and the manner in
which their application has been arrived at. One has to take into account
that it is just detail that presents the chief difficulty in anti-militarist
agitation and organization.
Dr. Karl Liebknecht
Berlin, February 11, 1907.
Notes
Vide Das Deutsche Wochenblatt Arendts, middle November 1896. Sozialdemokratische Parteikorrespondez, II. year, No, 4.
2
Speech delivered by the Kaiser to the recruits of the Alexander regiment calling
upon them to shoot at their fathers and mothers. –Trans.
3
On the evening of February 5, 1907, when the second ballots were taken, troops
of the Berlin garrison were provided with live cartridges and held ready to march.
It is known that on June 25, 1903, when the second ballots were last taken, in
Spandau pioneers appeared In the Schoenwalder Strasse to “bring to their senses”
the workers excited by the result of the elections.
1
Original Publisher’s
Note
The Socialist Labour Press feels that no apology or
explanation is needed to introduce “Militarism and Anti-Militarism”
to the English-speaking working-class, nor is there any need to
introduce the author, Karl Liebknecht, whose brave fight against
militarism has stirred and encouraged anti-militarist Socialists all
over the world. We would, however, call attention to the fact that the
publication of this work is an equal challenge to British militarism
as it is to German militarism.
Karl Liebknecht does not attack German militarism because
it is German, but because it is the duty of the international antimilitarist to attack the jingoes of his own nationality. Liebknecht
pointed this out clearly in the statement he made to the Royal
Court Martial at Berlin, May 8, 1916. He said it was the duty of the
internationalist to attack the enemy nearest home, viz., those of his
own country. In support of this contention, he said,
“If the German Socialists, for instance, were to combat the
English Government and the English Socialists the German
Government, it would be a farce or something worse. He who
does not attack the enemy, Imperialism, represented by those
who stand opposed to him face to face, but attacks those from
whom he is far away and who are not within his shooting
range, and that even with the help and approbation of his
own Government (i.e., those representatives of Imperialism
who alone are directly opposed to him) is no Socialist, but a
miserable hack of the ruling class. Such a policy is not class
war, but its opposite –inciting to war”.
Liebknecht’s attitude was the correct one for him to take up:
and it is one that the S.L.P. in this country has maintained right
throughout the war. We have resolutely fought British junkerdom,
and to-day, as before, we call upon the working-class to range
itself under our banner and carry on the fight against militarism
and capitalism until the same are overthrown and the world-wide
Original Introduction
12
international Socialist Republic is raised in place of the present time
world-wide hell of militarism and capitalism.
The Cause of the working-class all over the world is one;
and the enemy of the working-class is one –the capitalist class.
Unite Comrades! And carry on the war against war –and against
capitalism.
S. L. Press
July 1917.