Leo Jogiches
Leo Jogiches, also known by his party name Tyska or Tyshko (was born 17 July 1867 in the multi national city of Vilnius and died 10 March 1919 in Berlin). He was a Marxist revolutionary active in Lithuania, Poland and Germany. A contemporary in Vilnius of Felix Dzerzhinsky and Arkadi Kemer, little is known of his early years due to his secretive work habits ingrained through years of conspiratorial work. He 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, through 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 organization of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, 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.
External links
- New Crime of the German "Social-Democratic Government" a speech by Zinoviev after the death of Jogiches.