The Future Belongs to the PeopleLiebknecht, Karl Paul August Friedrich
History
The Future Belongs to the People
Liebknecht, Karl Paul August Friedrich
World War, 1914-1918
"Those who profit from the war want war with the United States.
To-morrow, perhaps, they may order us to aim lethal weapons against new
groups of brethren, against our fellow-workers in the United States, and
fight America, too. Consider well this fact: As long as the German
people does not arise and use force directed by its own will, the
assassination of the people will continue. Let thousands of voices shout
'Down with the shameless extermination of nations! Down with those
responsible for these crimes!' Our enemy is not the English, French, nor
Russian people, but the great German landed proprietors, the German
capitalists and their executive committee.
"Forward, let us fight the government; let us fight these mortal enemies
of all freedom. Let us fight for everything which means the future
triumph of the working-classes, the future of humanity and civilization.
"Workers, comrades, and you, women of the people, let not this festival
of May, the second during the war, pass without protest against the
Imperialist Slaughter. On the first of May let millions of voices cry,
'Down with the shameful crime of the extermination of peoples!' 'Down
with those responsible for the War!'"
LIEBKNECHT'S MAY DAY, 1916, SPEECH
_Delivered at the Potsdamerplatz, Berlin, May 1, 1916_
(Report by one present at the demonstration)
BERLIN, May 1. Very early in the morning, with three other comrades, I
reached Hortensienstrasse, where Comrade Liebknecht lives. We enter No.
14, climb up the stairs, ring his bell. Comrade Liebknecht opens the
door himself. He is thin, his hair looks unusually black and his face is
deathly pale. He walks like a dead man, walking with grim steps. He
leaves us and soon returns with his wife; she is a Russian. She nods
welcome to us all. Suddenly a terrible fear comes to me. No one has
spoken a word, yet we all feel that we are in the presence of a supreme
moment. From Comrade Liebknecht's grim silence we judge that he is about
to hurl prudence to the four winds and defy the Government.
He hands out, one to each of us, a copy of the speech which he will
deliver. So far not one word has been spoken. While we are hurriedly
reading his speech, which is to be delivered within a few hours, he
remarks, "I have several thousand of these printed."
We have finished reading the prospectus which will make history and
send him to prison. Then we go into conference. We have been with him
just an hour. We leave him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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