Leo
Jogiches, the son of a wealthy merchant, was born in Vilna, Russia.
He moved to Switzerland in 1890 where he met Rosa
Luxemburg, Alexandra Kollontai,
George Plekhanov and Karl
Kautsky.
In 1893 Jogiches joined with Rosa Luxemburg
to form the Social Democratic Party of Poland. As it was an illegal
organization, the party's newspaper, Sprawa
Robotnicza (Workers' Cause) was published in Paris.
After
the 1905 Revolution Jogiches and
Rosa Luxemburg moved
to Warsaw where they were soon arrested. After their release they
returned to Germany.
Jogiches
and
Rosa Luxemburg took
the side of the Mensheviks in their
struggle with the Bolsheviks. As a
result Vladimir Lenin favoured the Polish
section led by Karl Radek over those of
Jogiches and Luxemburg.
Jogiches
was opposed to Germany's participation in the First
World War and at the end of 1914 joined with Karl
Liebknecht,
Rosa
Luxemburg,
Paul Levi, Ernest
Meyer, Franz Mehring and Clara
Zetkin to establish an underground political organization called
Spartakusbund (Spartacus League). The
Spartacus League publicized its views in its illegal newspaper, Spartacus
Letters.
On 1st
May, 1916, the Spartacus League decided to come out into the open
and organized a demonstration against the First
World War in Berlin. Several of its leaders, including Karl
Liebknecht and Rosa
Luxemburg
were arrested and imprisoned. They were not released until October,
1918, when Max von Baden granted an amnesty
to all political prisoners.
In January,
1919, members of the group organized the Spartakist
Rising in Berlin. Friedrich Ebert,
the leader of the Social Democrat Party and
Germany's new chancellor, called in the German
Army and the Freikorps to bring
an end to the rebellion. By 13th January the rebellion had been crushed
and most of its leaders were arrested. Over the next few weeks Karl
Liebknecht, Rosa
Luxemburg,
and hundreds of other members were executed without trial.
Leo
Jogiches was murdered on 10th March, 1919, while while trying
to track down the killers of Rosa Luxemburg.
Available
from Amazon Books (order below)
