Leo Jogiches
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Leo Jogiches | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 17 June 1867 |
| Died | 10 March 1919 (aged 51) |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Known for | Marxist revolutionary |
Leo Jogiches (Russian: Лео Йогихес; June 17, 1867 – March 10, 1919),[2] also known by his party name of Jan Tyszka, was a Marxist revolutionary active in Lithuania, Poland, and Germany. He was a key founder of the political party known as The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania.
For many years a close political ally and personal companion of Rosa Luxemburg, Jogiches was assassinated by right wing paramilitary forces in 1919 while investigating Luxemburg's earlier murder.
Biography
Early life
Leo Jogiches was born to an ethnic Jewish family in Vilnius, Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, on June 17, 1867. Little is known of his childhood years.
Jogiches joined a revolutionary circle and became a leader by 1885, political activity which led to arrests in 1888 and 1889.[2] Exile soon followed, with Jogiches finding himself in Zurich, Switzerland, where in 1890 the 23-year old Jogiches met a fellow 20-year old ethnic Jewish political émigré from Tsarism, Rosa Luxemburg.[3] The pair fell in love and became both close political allies and personal companions.[3]
The Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania
In 1893, Jogiches and Luxemburg founded a new Marxist political party, the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland (SDKP), later known as the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL).[3]
Although an intelligent person and dedicated revolutionary socialist thinker, Jogiches was virtually incapable of converting his ideas into written words — "the mere thought of putting his ideas on paper paralyzes him," Luxemburg later recalled.[4] Consequently, the chief contribution of Jogiches was that of literary stimulant to the skilled publicist Luxemburg, as well as behind the scenes organizer of the fledgling underground political party which he had helped to establish.[4]
As Luxemburg grew in fame as a Marxist theoretician, Jogiches became gradually more embittered about his life, until by his middle 30s he had come — as one Luxemburg biographer phrased it — to have "fully realized the gap between his youthful aspirations and the disillusionments of reality."[5] Interpersonal conflict followed, exacerbated by the different trajectories of personal achievement, with the pair permanently separating in 1907.[6]
Spartakusbund
Jogiches was a founding member of militantly anti-war Spartacus League (Spartakusbund), a revolutionary organization formed in 1915 together with Karl Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Franz Mehring and others. Following the jailing for their anti-war efforts of Liebknecht in May 1916 and Luxemburg that same July, Jogiches took over as the leader of the organization's underground activity.[7] He would remain in this role until his own arrest in March 1918.[7]
Assassination
The Spartacus League led the failed German Revolution of 1918/1919 after which Luxemburg and Liebknecht were killed by the right wing paramilitary Freikorps troops. Jogiches was killed in Berlin while he was trying to investigate the assassination of Luxemburg and Liebknecht.
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Feliks Tych. "Luxemburg, Rosa". YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Retrieved 2014-01-31.
- ^ a b Prokhorov, Aleksandr Mikhaĭlovich (1982). "Jogiches, Leo". Great Soviet Encyclopedia. New York, New York: Macmillan Educational Company. LCCN 73010680.
- ^ a b c Elzbieta Ettinger, "Comrade and Lover: Rosa Luxemberg's Letters to Leo Jogiches," New German Critique, whole no. 17, (Spring 1979), pg. 132.
- ^ a b Ettinger, "Comrade and Lover," pg. 133.
- ^ The words are those of Elzbieta Ettinger. See: Ettinger, "Comrade and Lover," pg. 135.
- ^ Ettinger, "Comrade and Lover," pg. 135.
- ^ a b David Fernbach, "Memories of Spartacus: Mathilde Jacob and Wolfgang Fernbach," History Workshop Journal, whole no. 48 (Autumn 1999), pg. 207. In JSTOR.
Further reading
- Elzbieta Ettinger, "Comrade and Lover: Rosa Luxemberg's Letters to Leo Jogiches," New German Critique, whole no. 17, (Spring 1979), pp. 129-142. In JSTOR
- Elzbieta Ettinger (ed.), Comrade and Lover: Rosa Luxemburg's Letters to Leo Jogiches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1979.
- Elzbieta Ettinger, Rosa Luxemburg: A Life. Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1986.
- Grigory Zinoviev, "New Crime of the German 'Social-Democratic Government," The Communist International, vol. 1, no. 1 (April 1919). —Radio address following the 1919 murder of Jogiches.
External links
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
| Other | |
- 1867 births
- 1919 deaths
- People from Vilnius
- People from Vilna Governorate
- Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania politicians
- Social Democratic Party of Germany politicians
- Independent Social Democratic Party politicians
- Communist Party of Germany politicians
- German revolutionaries
- Assassinated German politicians
- Assassinated Jews
- People murdered in Berlin
- Polish revolutionaries
- Jewish German politicians
- Jewish Lithuanian politicians
- Jewish socialists