Spartacus League

Spartacus League
Spartakusbund
Founders	Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin
Foundation	4 August 1914 (1914-08-04)
Dissolved	15 January 1919 (1919-01-15)
Split from	Social Democratic Party
Country	German Empire Weimar Republic
Motives	Opposition to German involvement in World War I Anti-monarchism Spread of socialism and communism Establishment of a socialist republic
Ideology	Communism Marxism Revolutionary socialism
Political position	Far-left
Notable attacks	Spartacist uprising
Status	Defunct
Succeeded by Communist Party of Germany

The Spartacus League (German: Spartakusbund) was a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I.^[1] It was founded in August 1914 as the International Group by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who were dissatisfied with the party's official policies in support of the war. In 1916 it renamed itself the Spartacus Group and in 1917 joined the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which had split off from the SPD as its left wing faction.

During the November Revolution of 1918 that broke out across Germany at the end of the war, the Spartacus Group re-established itself as a nationwide, non-party organization called the "Spartacus League" with the goal of instituting a soviet republic that would include all of Germany. It became part of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) when it was formed on 1 January 1919 and at that point ceased to exist as a separate entity.^[2]

The League's name referred to Spartacus, the leader of a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic (73–71 BCE). For the Spartacists, his name symbolized the ongoing resistance of the oppressed against their exploiters and thus expressed the Marxist view of historical materialism, according to which history is driven by class struggles.