Liebknecht reports on the upcoming conference of German Social Democracy, postponed due to repression, politics in Austria, and parses the numbers of German casualties in the war.

‘Letter from Leipzig, XXII’ by Wilhelm Liebknecht from Workingman’s Advocate (Chicago). Vol. 8 No. 1. September 30, 1871.

Leipzig, July 21, 1871

To the Editor of the WORKINGMAN’S ADVOCATE:

The annual Congress of the Social Democratic party, which was fixed for last Saturday and following days, has been postponed for four weeks, and will, if nothing intervenes, be opened August 12th. The reasons for this step were manifold, partly local, partly political. In consequence of the triumphal entry of our victorious army, which took place in the midst of last week, all the hotels in Dresden were filled, and no proper meeting room for the congress to be had; however, this alone would perhaps not have been considered sufficient to cause the alteration of the original plan–but the hostility suddenly shown by the Saxonian government, the scandalous measures of oppression indulged in by our provincial authorities, the resumption of the accusation against Bebel, Hepner and Liebknecht by the Leipzig tribunal–all this made a delay necessary, as it is utterly impossible to solve the practical questions of organization and administration that will form the principal occupation of the Congress, without being acquainted with the designs of the government–to use a German façon de parler–which way the hare runs.

Of course we are not able to foretell what will happen in the next weeks, but certain it is that a most critical time for our party, a time of trial in every sense of the word is approaching. Since the day the Commune rose in Paris, our privileged classes are living in permanent terror; instead of meditating over the causes of the social movement they have, in the blindness of their terror, embraced the stupid idea of eradicating socialism by brutal force. The circumstance that after the tragic fall of the Commune, the socialist movement in Germany, far from losing ground, has, on the contrary, taken a fresh impulse, is strengthening them in this silly notion. Mr. Stieber, in one person the Pietri and Haussmann of the German Empire, has, as I told you already, received orders to collect material for crushing us. And he will collect some, there are plenty of skillfull rogues who can frame a treasonable letter and imitate a man’s handwriting. Mr. Stieber is an old hand at managing such things, and if the trick is found out–which it is sure to be when the victims come before the jury, after they  have been in preventive confinement for a year or eighteen months–well, then the guilt will be thrown on some subaltern agent, and Mr. Stieber, secret counsellor, to give him the official title, Mr. Stieber, the personal friend of King Emperor William, Mr. Stieber, the chief of the civil administration of the occupied French departments during the war, Mr. Stieber, head of the German police, great and all powerful. Mr. Stieber will not lose the confidence of his chivalrous master, and be rewarded in some signal manner, in order to console him for the little disappointment.

The facilitate Mr. Stieber’s game the machinery of the Berlin press bureau has been set in motion, and for the last quarter of a year nearly a thousand newspapers are daily vomiting forth articles denouncing socialism, and the International Workingmen’s Association, and exhibiting a violence which proved that the engine is worked with the utmost steam power. If we add to this the significant fact that a decree of amnesty was already printed three months ago, and has been revoked since we cannot entertain the slightest doubt concerning the intentions of our antagonists, and we must again prepare for rough weather. But, our American friends need not be afraid on our account, we shall weather the storm.

The Austrian Government is now beginning to reap the harvest it had sown by its prosecutions of socialism; the workmen have been driven into an alliance with the middle classes, the so-called German Party; whose professed aim it is to promote the annexation of German Austria to the German Empire. Austrian friends know full well the nature and reactionary character of this said German Empire, but they are convinced, and rightly too, that if all of Germany is united, the south with Austria will have a decided preponderance over the Prussian element which now predominates, and that so, by the entrance of German Austria a great step will be done in advance, and the replacement of the Hohenzollern Empire by a free commonwealth materially accelerated; while on the other hand, the idiotic policy of the Austrian Government brought about a state of things excluding all hope for an improvement. Thus owing to the folly of Giskra, Hohenisart, and whatever names the worthies may bear, the workingmen who were ready to assist in forming a democratic Austria have been forced to forsake the ship which they alone could have saved. In vain the government papers are now appealing to their Austrian hearts and promising amends. The stern answer will be: Too late! You have been lying too often to be trusted any more. We have proved our Austrian hearts by striving honestly to render Austria happy and free. But you have made Austria a prison for us, and this prison must be broken. After the decision of the Austrian workmen to cooperate with the middle class, we may safely pronounce the fatal Finis Austrias.

Up to the present day, the Prussian government could not be prevailed upon to publish complete lists of our losses (in human life) during the late war. Lists of the killed and wounded were given, though not complete by any means, but about the numbers of the sick and those carried away by diseases, no official information has been vouchsafed us. We could only guess that according to the rules of all former campaigns, the loss by diseases must have been much greater still than that of the battlefield. By the indiscretion of the half-official Board of Inquiry (which had undertaken to find out the whereabouts of soldiers in the field at the wish of their relatives at home) it has just come out that the worst apprehensions were well founded; through means of this said Board the addresses of six hundred and thirty-three thousand soldiers have been furnished. Out of these 633,000 not more than 78,000 belonged to the French army, the remaining 554,000 were German soldiers–46,000 South German, and 508,000 Northerners. And these numbers are far from being complete, as may be perceived from the disproportion of the two last figures, South Germany having sent into the field one third as many soldiers as North Germany, and the Southern contingents having suffered even more, their loss in sick and wounded cannot have amounted to only one-eleventh. If we deduct 100,000 wounded–the official statement–we have 454,900 sick accounted for by the Board of Inquiry, and to this number at least a hundred thousand more most be added. How many of this fearful array have succumbed to these diseases, how many have become invalids for life, we are unable to calculate yet, and perhaps never shall be able. Mr. Bismarck and his colleagues care little or naught about it; they have pocketed their dotations. Mr. Bismarck for himself (and by himself!), three millions of thalers; the other statesmen generals from 50,000 to 500,000 thalers each; the vile multitude of their starving, haggard victims must be satisfied with the miserable pittance of a few thalers, contemptuously flung to them!

This is glory!

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 issue: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89077510/1871-09-30/ed-1/seq-2/