Social justice warriors (SJWs) come in all shapes and sizes, but their methods and mentalities are similar enough to draw meaningful conclusions about such things if a long enough timeline is studied. Although the modern social justice warrior might seem on the surface to bear little resemblance to his 20th century Bolshevist ancestor, a close look at the record suggests otherwise.

There is a direct line of descent which runs from the bespectacled Bolshevist butchers of early 20th century Europe, and the blue-haired, overweight, shrill monitors of political correctness that haunt the college campuses, media outlets, and workplaces of the West today. Not to understand this fact is to miss something of central importance in predicting future outbursts of SJW violence.

We will examine here a historic event that has slipped into obscurity, Germany’s Spartacist Revolt of 1919. Who instigated it, how it came about, and—most importantly—how it was dealt with will be instructive for readers interested in social order, stability, and tradition.

Germany in 1918 was in chaos. The war had been lost; the Kaiser had abdicated; and the reins of power were being contested by various groups on the right, the left, and the center. Some of these groups cared about the future of the nation.

Some, inspired by the Bolshevist Revolution which had seized control of Russia, were ideological fanatics of the very worst type. They cared nothing about Germany, only about turning the country into a Communist hellhole of the type then being shaped in the East. All over Europe, Bolshevist agents were fomenting insurrection as part of a Moscow-directed scheme to control Europe.

It is easy to forget now, in 2015, that Bolshevism was the worst catastrophe to befall Western civilization. By any reasonable measure, this is a fact as inescapable as 1+1=2. Much like modern SJWs, Bolshevists liked to trumpet their alleged “ideas” of freedom, justice, and equality.

In practice, these slogans were code-words for exterminating people they did not like and destroying thousands of years of Western culture.

Knowing what we now know about the uncounted millions of Bolshevist atrocities, these “revolutionaries” should be recognized for what they were: a plague virus. No measures could be too harsh in dealing with them. Luckily, some governments in those days had the backbone to eradicate the virus. In Hungary, for example, a Communist rat and Comitern agent named Bela Kun staged a revolution in 1919, which fortunately was suppressed.

One of the groups in postwar Germany seeking to seize power was the so-called “Spartacist League.” It renamed itself the Communist Party of Germany in 1919 and joined the Comitern in that year (the Comitern was Moscow’s front organization dedicated to international revolution). The Spartacist League was founded by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and Clara Zetkin. Here are their photos:

They look much like hateful modern social justice warriors. It is interesting, in fact, to note that SJWs of all eras look roughly the same. Luxemburg has been to some extent elevated as some sort of secular saint by the media, but she was little more than another vindictive Bolshevist commissar.

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And just like the modern SJW, these people were traitors to their homeland and their culture. They spent the war years (1916-1918) locked in German jails for trying to foment antiwar demonstrations.

Had they taken power in Germany, they would have embarked on the same bloody program that all other Communist parties undertook. But they were able to conceal their schemes behind angelic-sounding phrases and slogans, much like the modern SJW.

At the end of the war in 1918, Liebknecht had taken advantage of the chaos to declare Germany a “socialist republic.” No one was interested in his or Rosa Luxemburg’s brand of radicalism except a vocal minority. But as often happens, the vocal minority can make itself appear larger than life by the acquiescence of those in power.

In 1919, Luxemburg and her cuckish lackey Liebknecht organized street demonstrations that were intended to destabilize the new Weimar Republic. The chancellorship was held at that time by Friedrich Ebert. Although Ebert was generally a centrist and a man of order, he despised the Communists and was determined to put down the revolt.

His job was essentially a thankless one: the new republic was not really satisfactory to anyone on either the right or the left, and it was for him to try to balance often irreconcilable differences. But he was a decent man, and was horrified at the stories of Communists attacking the traditional symbols of authority in Germany. Had there been more like him in Russia, perhaps Bolshevism would never have taken root there either.

And so Ebert called in the Freikorps to smash the Communist revolt by force. The Freikorps were units of demobilized soldiers who had retained their organizational structure and weapons from the war. They were not men to be trifled with. Most of them had spent years in combat, were conservative by nature, and truly loathed the Communists.

In Berlin, the Freikorps units blasted the Communist rabble out of the streets beginning on January 8, 1919. The death toll was modest, around 150 Spartacists and 17 Freikorps soldiers. But there was no other way to deal with people who were ideological fanatics and determined to seize power by force.

Liebknecht and Luxemburg were found holed up in a hotel on January 15. They were taken into custody and handed over to the Garde-Kavallerie-Schützen-Division, commanded by Captain Waldemar Pabst. Both of them were interrogated, beaten, and shot soon after. Luxemburg’s body was thrown into a canal, and Liebknecht’s corpse was sent anonymously to a morgue.

Pabst was never prosecuted for the killings, and thereafter faded into obscurity. Knowing what we know about Communist regimes and their bloody conduct, there were no doubt many in Germany who breathed a sigh of relief that a Communist takeover had been thwarted.

But, of course, it would have been distasteful to say this openly.

Pabst believed he had done the right thing in disposing of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, and never apologized. In a published interview given with a West German newspaper in 1962, he said the following:

In January 1919, I attended a KPD [German Communist Party] meeting where Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were speaking. I gathered that they were the intellectual leaders of the revolution, and I decided to have them killed. Following my orders, they were captured. This decision to have them killed did not come easy to me… I do maintain that this decision is morally and theologically legitimate.

We should note that the West German government in 1962 fully agreed with Pabst. The German Federal Republic’s Press and Information office issued a statement that Pabst had acted rightly, and that the executions were “in accordance with martial law.”

When people are trying to destroy you, the West German government reasoned, you have to do what is necessary to defend yourself.

I fully agree.

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