Founding of the KPD

On 30 December 1918 a congress assembled in the ceremonial hall of the Prussian Landtag in Berlin which by 1 January 1919 had brought into being the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). It was formed by the Spartacus League of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg and the International Communists of Germany (IKD), who had grown out of the left radicals of Bremen and Hamburg. The building, in which the Congress of Councils had met two weeks earlier, was guarded by sailors of the People’s Navy Division.

Since 1917 the Spartacists had operated as a separate group within the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). Liebknecht, who in December 1914 had been the only deputy to vote against the war credits, and Luxemburg had come out of prison in the autumn of 1918. After the revolution they demanded that all power be handed to the workers’ and soldiers’ councils. The Congress of Councils in mid-December, however, rejected a council republic and set elections to the National Assembly for 19 January. Disappointed by the outcome of the congress and by what they saw as the vacillating attitude of the USPD, the Spartacists decided on 22 December to call a national conference in Berlin. The Christmas fighting and the USPD’s departure from the government hastened the split. As early as 29 December most of the delegates who had arrived came out in favour of founding a new party. According to German studies, they were persuaded above all by the Bolshevik envoy who had come from Russia, Karl Radek.

According to German studies, 127 delegates took part in the congress, among them 94 Spartacists and 29 representatives of the IKD. The proceedings were chaired by Wilhelm Pieck and Jacob Walcher. Liebknecht gave a report on the crisis of the USPD, Radek a speech of welcome, and Paul Levi a report on the National Assembly. The party adopted the name Communist Party of Germany (Spartacus League). Luxemburg preferred the name “socialist party”, to stress the German communists’ independence from the Bolsheviks and to make cooperation with other socialists easier. The congress failed to win over the Berlin Revolutionary Shop Stewards, who had a base in the big factories. The talks broke down over, among other things, the party’s name.

The sharpest dispute concerned the elections. Luxemburg, Levi, Leo Jogiches and, hesitantly, Liebknecht wanted the party to put up candidates and use the campaign for agitation. Most of the delegates, especially the radicals of the IKD and Otto Rühle, considered this a betrayal of the revolution. The motion to boycott the elections was carried by 62 votes to 23. On 31 December Luxemburg delivered a great programmatic speech. She argued that socialism could not be introduced by decree, and that the revolution would be a long process of struggle by the masses themselves. The congress adopted as its programme her text “What Does the Spartacus League Want?”, published on 14 December in Die Rote Fahne. It promised that the Spartacists would never take power except by the clear will of the great majority of the workers.

From the outset the new party was more radical than its leaders. A few days later, on 5 January 1919, Berlin was engulfed by an uprising against Ebert’s government, which the KPD leadership joined. After it was crushed, on 15 January, officers and men of the Guards Cavalry Rifle Division murdered Liebknecht and Luxemburg.