Leo Jogiches

Leo Jogiches, also known by his party name Tyska (was born 17 July 1867 in the multi national city of Vilnius and died 10 March 1919 in Berlin). He was Marxist revolutionary active in Lithuania, Poland and Germany. A contemporary in Vilnius of Felix Dzerzhinsky and Arkadi Kremer, little is known of his early years due to his anonymous work habits ingrained through years of conspiratorial work. He early joined a social democratic workers circle before being forced into exile. In 1893 he helped form the Social Democractic Party of the Kingdom of Poland along with Rosa Luxemburg. Jogiches and Luxemburg fell in love with each other, a love that lasted their whole lives, though difficulties and even if they never became a real couple. The work of the two cannot be separated in the least, although a clear division of labour is observable, with Jogiches the organiser and Luxemburg the theorist.

Jogiches was a founding member of the Spartacus League, a revolutionary left-wing organisation of the German Social Democratic Party, formed at the beginning of World War I by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and others. On 1 January, 1919 the League became the Communist Party of Germany.

The Spartacus League led the German communist revolution of 1918/1919, which failed, after which Luxemburg and Liebknecht were brutally murdered by government troops. Jogiches was also murdered in March 1919 while trying to investigate the assassination of Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.