Jogiches, Leo

Jogiches, Leo 

(pseudonym Jan Tyszka). Born June 17,1867, in Vilnius; died Mar. 10,1919, in Berlin. Figure in the Polish and German labor movements.

Circa 1885, Jogiches was one of the leaders of a revolutionary circle in Vilnius; he was arrested in 1888 and 1889. Jogiches emigrated to Switzerland in 1890 and moved to Berlin in 1900. He cooperated with the Liberation of Labor, headed by G. V. Plekhanov. Jogiches was one of the leaders of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland, which was founded in 1893 and became the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPL) in 1900. He edited many of the SDKPL’s publications and in 1903 became a member of its central board.

In November 1905, Jogiches and R. Luxemburg arrived in Warsaw and took part in the Revolution of 1905–07 in Poland. In March 1906, Jogiches was arrested and sentenced to eight years of hard labor and exile for life in Siberia. He escaped from prison in 1907 and fled to Berlin. At the London Congress of the RSDLP in 1907, Jogiches was elected a candidate member of the party’s Central Committee. During World War I he played a major role in promoting an internationalist position within the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In 1916, Jogiches became one of the organizers and leaders of the Spartacists (seeSPARTACUSLEAGUE) and the publisher of Spartakusbriefe. He was instrumental in founding the Communist Party of Germany (CPG), and at the party’s Constituent Congress (from December 1918 to January 1919) he was elected to the Central Committee. After the vicious murder of R. Luxemburg and K. Liebknecht in January 1919, Jogiches became head of the CPG. Jogiches was arrested on Mar. 9,1919, and was murdered in prison.