Russia and revolution
Spartacus League
The revolutionary wing of the German left, opposed to the war and led by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. At the turn of 1918 and 1919 it became the core of the Communist Party of Germany.
The group grew out of opposition to the SPD's support for war credits and the domestic truce. From 1915 it was named after its journal, the Gruppe Internationale, and after a conference on 1 January 1916 it published the illegal "Spartacus Letters", which gave it its name. Liebknecht and Luxemburg spent most of the war in prison, and Leo Jogiches ran its work. In 1917 the League joined the USPD while keeping its separate identity, and called for strikes, including in January 1918.
The Spartacists' influence was small. On 9 November 1918 Liebknecht proclaimed a "free socialist republic", and their paper Die Rote Fahne demanded all power for the councils, but the December congress of councils chose elections to a National Assembly. At a congress from 30 December 1918 to 1 January 1919 the League and other left-wing radicals founded the KPD. The January rising in Berlin was crushed, and on 15 January 1919 Freikorps soldiers murdered Liebknecht and Luxemburg.
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