Member of a group of left-wing radicals in
Germany at the end of World War I, founders
of the Spartacus League, which became the
German Communist party in 1919. The league
participated in the Berlin workers' revolt of
Jan 1919 which was suppressed by the
Freikorps on the orders of the socialist
government. The agitation ended with the
murder of Spartacist leaders Karl Liebknecht
and Rosa Luxemburg.