The scale of the massacres in Paris in the Semaine sanglante is becoming clearer, and Liebknecht reacts accordingly.

‘Letter from Leipzig, XVIII’ by Wilhelm Liebknecht from Workingman’s Advocate (Chicago). Vol. 7 Nos. 44. July 8, 1871.

Leipzig, June 16, 1871

To the Editor of the WORKINGMAN’S ADVOCATE

Today victorious militarism holds its grand festival at Berlin. The weather uncommonly bad until yesterday, has suddenly changed and the radiant summer’s sun will smile down upon the triumphal entrance of the returning heroes into the capital of the new empire. So far all is merry as a marriage bell, and Providence in stopping the awful rains, has again proved gracious to her especial friend, the King-Emperor William. But not all that glitters is gold. The splendid Germania that will welcome our troops is au fond but a flimsy composition of plaster of Paris and wicker work, and the hundreds of thousands of people that will line the streets and rend the air with their enthusiastic vivats! bear in the hearts, most of them at least, the canker of discontent. Discontent more developed, more conscious and therefore deeper rooted than in the first time after the conclusion of Peace. Since then all the hopes, which the hopeful still harbored have been destroyed one by one, and the most unfavorable predictions of the Irreconcilables have been fulfilled one by one. The long session of the Reichstag, that ended but yesterday, has been one long string of disappointments for the patriots. Not the slightest concession has been made to liberalism by the government. The majority were of truly lamb like submissiveness and yet ruling Junkerdom found means of venting its brutality on the unresisting herd. Quite modestly they ventured once to hint at their right of having a word to say in money affairs (concerning the proposed loans for Alsace-Lorraine) and what was the result? Count or Prince Bismarck, their adored idol, rose up from his seat and in a voice trembling with rage he shouted to them threatening: duos ego! and in a remarkable speech such as has never been heard in Europe since Louis XIV of France pronounced the impudent L’État c’est moi! (the State am I!), in a speech which contained the words I, me, my and mine just 150 times–I write one hundred and fifty times–he gave notice to his affrighted hearers, who were cowering like a brood of fowls menaced by a hawk, that “I” Prince Bismarck is all and the Reichstag nothing, and that if the Reichstag dares to throw the slightest obstacles in the way of mighty “I” it will be bad for the Reichstag. Of course the Reichstag pocketed the affont, accepted the lesson, and without wincing, resigns every further attempt at meddling in money affairs. However, ill luck would have it that the sorry wretches got into trouble again. A couple of post office officials had been removed from Hamburg to uncomfortable stations near the Russian frontier because they had got up a petition to the Reichstag. Now the right of petitioning the Reichstag is undoubtedly guaranteed by the Constitution, and the Reichstag having only a small quantity of that right, resolved to make a stand for its right of being petitioned. A solemn “interpellation” was let off, and Prince Bismarck’s factotum, Delbrück,’ answered cooly that the two officials in question had not been removed because they had got up a petition, but for disciplinary reasons, and in questions of discipline, civil as well as military, the representatives of the gr-r-r-reat German nation had to hold their tongues. To a further meek question Mr. Delbrück replied, the government had never thought and did not think to interfere with the right of petitioning. The members of the Reichstag looked astonished at one another and–held their tongues. And why had they looked so astonished? Well, several of them had in their pockets the copy of a circular sent by the Postmaster General to all post offices, which said circular forbade petitioning categorically! Can behavior more abject be imagined? These men allow themselves to be brow-beaten and bullied by a fellow whom they know to be a liar, and can convict as such on the spot. I doubt, whether the history of parliamentarism offers a pendant to this. However, the matter did not end here yet; a second interpellation was framed, vindicating the right of petitioning. The government papers had in the meantime mercilessly twitted and lectured the Reichstag: several members had been heard privately to express great anger; and last a serious battle seemed imminent. But no such thing. A flock of the most infuriated sheep will never attack a dog. The interpellation was put. Delbrück simply repeated his old answer: the government had not interfered with the right of petition, and as for the two removed officials, they had not been removed for petitioning. But for what other reason? You representatives of the people have no right to inquire into the mysteries of the administrative hierarchy. Fierce words were pronounced, and, in these fierce words, the anger evaporated. Nobody had the courage to brand Delbrück as a liar: and of the different resolutions moved not one was carried, so that literally the Reichstag did not come to any resolution at all. And now let us turn our back on this sorry spectacle.

The truth with regard to the Paris catastrophe is slowly penetrating through the mist. We know now that the doors of Paris were opened to the Versaillese partly by treason, partly by the Prussians. The latter fact is indubitable; it has been confirmed by Bismarck himself. When this worthy returned to Berlin after his Frankfort conference with Jules Favre, he stopped for some time at Weimar, and there he said to the well known African explorer, Mr. Rohlfs, in the presence of a knot of bystanders, among whom a trustworthy friend of mine: We have opened their Paris, it is their business now to hold it. This was on the 22nd of May, the day after the Versaillese had succeeded in crossing the circumvallation. How the infamous bargain–for such it was, it having been agreed that 500 millions of francs were to be paid by Thiers to Bismarck after the fall of Paris–how this infamous bargain was executed we do not yet know exactly: however, it has transpired already, that Montmartre, the strongest position of the National Guard, was attacked from behind, where no attack had been suspected by the Communists, because the Prussians were posted there. Now it is utterly impossible for the Versaillese to have got into this position without an understanding with, if not actual assistance from, the Prussians. Altogether the part played by the Prussians in this tragedy is one of the darkest blots on the honor of Germany. The world stands aghast at the fearful massacres executed by the troops of Mr. Thiers, yet there are at least attenuating circumstances for these soldiers, who were detained in Germany as prisoners of war up to the last moment. having there no opportunity of informing themselves about the state of things in France, and who, in the heat of passion, killed those that before had tried to kill them. But where are the attenuating circumstances for the Prussian soldiers. who had to draw a cordon for the Versaillese and had to drive into certain destruction thousands of unarmed men that had done them no harm. However, I will not be unjust. A soldier is no man, he is a machine; a machine, which has not to think; has not to feel, but simply to slash and shoot according to the whim and will of the master that directs it. It (for it is no he) has as little responsibility as the knife has with which murder has been committed. To be sure, human nature sometimes burst forth from the machine–after all, the best drilled sergeant is unable to rid the machine of all remnants of humanity–and many at one of the soldiers, that had to do the horrible work, is suffering now sharp pangs of conscience. “It was heart-rendering,” a Saxonian private writes, “to push back with the bayonet the unfortunate men that sought shelter in our lines. We knew that we drove them to certain death–but iron discipline forced us.” The same iron discipline will force the same soldiers one day, to shoot us down.

Another letter of a Saxonian soldier, which is lying before me, confirms that the conflagrations in Paris were caused by the Versaillese. In describing the cannonade he witnessed from a close distance, the writer observes that on the part of the National Guards no bombs were thrown, while the Versaillese sent, over the houses, a rain of bombs and shells, which, bursting, set fire everywhere.

When the Commune had been overthrown, the bourgeoisie shouted with voluptuous delight: This is the end of socialism! Oh ye fools. Socialism will not die as long as there are proletarians, and proletarians there will be as long as there are bourgeoisie–that is, capitalists fattening on the work of starving proletarians. Socialism is not a philanthropical dream, it is a logical necessity, it is the irrepressible consequence of our social state. And the bourgeoisie itself is obliged to contribute to the growth of socialism. It cannot grow, without a corresponding increase of proletarians, and every proletarian is, if not yet a soldier, certainly a recruit of socialism.

Or do you think ideas, principles can be drowned in blood? Have not thousands, and hundred thousands of heretics died on the scaffolds, and at the stakes of holy inquisition, and has the Reformation been prevented? Whenever has a cause suffered, by having been made the cause of martyrs? Ten thousand proletarians died for socialism in June 1848; fifty thousand proletarians died for socialism in April and May 1871: and hundred thousands of proletarians are ready to die for socialism, when another opportunity arrives.

Oh, ye fools! Not we have lost this battle between capital and labor, though we were beaten this time. A defeat like this is the mother of future victory. And your victory–it is like that of King Pyrrhus, who exclaimed: One more such victory, and I am lost! You will not get stronger, that we know, but we get stronger every day, and we can already calculate the time when we shall be able to beat you!

In conclusion I will only mention still that the German workmen are unanimous in their sympathy with the Parisians, and that Bebel, who, in the Reichstag, defended the Commune, has only expressed this universal feeling.

The Chicago Workingman’s Advocate in 1864 by the Chicago Typographical Union during a strike against the Chicago Times. An essential publication in the history of the U.S. workers’ movement, the Advocate though editor Andrew Cameron became the voice National Labor Union after the Civil War. It’s pages were often the first place the work of Marx, Engels, and the International were printed in English in the U.S. It lasted through 1874 with the demise of the N.L.U.

PDF of full issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89077510/1871-07-08/ed-1/seq-2/