two earlier Liebknecht speeches, the 18 71 “Zu Trutz und Schutz” (“ForOpposi-
tion and Protection”)speech and the 1872“Wissen ist Macht”(“Knowledge Is
Power”)speech. Read together, both speeches offer compellingarguments for
humanistic education as an indispensable weapon in the struggles of the work-
ing class and attesttothe simultaneous overvaluation and devaluation of culture
as aconstitutive part of the relationship to bourgeois culture. Likewise, the al-
most religious faith in the liberating effect of education and the regular attacks
on the institutions of knowledge and power bring out the underlying tension be-
tween the political alternativesofrevolution and reform that had troubled the
socialist movement from the beginning.In“ForOpposition and Protection,”a
speech givenonthe occasion of the foundingofthe CrimmitschauerVolksverein,
Liebknecht introduced the influential two-culturemodel that henceforth defined
working-class culture in relationto bourgeois culture.“Twoworlds now stand
sharplyopposedto one another,” he declared,
theworld of the wealthyand theworld of the not-wealthy, the world of capital and the
world of work, theworld of the oppressors and theworld of the oppressed, theworld of
the bourgeoisie and theworld of socialism–twoworlds with opposinggoals,endeavors,
views,and languages, twoworlds that cannot exist in harmonywith one another,and
one of which must makeroom for the other.¹¹In the late eighteenthcentury,Liebknecht explained, the emerging bourgeoisie
had harnessed the powers of the aesthetic to rise up against the feudal order
and demand equal rights. Now the workingclass was called uponto seize the
role of bearer of culturefrom the bourgeoisie,given its failuretorealize the
emancipatorygoals of the Enlightenment in the political realm. As theredeemer
of humanism and humanity,the radicalizedworkingclass would be empowered
by its deep appreciation for the great works ofWeimarclassicism and its princi-
pled rejection of the nationalist,conservative,and authoritarian cultureofImpe-
rial Germany.
In the“Knowledge Is Power”speech, delivered oneyear later at the found-
ing ceremonies of the Dresden and Leipzig educational associations, Liebknecht
further clarified the party’srelationship to the legacies of the Enlightenment.He
usedawell-known phrase attributed toFrancisBacon to outlineasocialist po-
sition that at once accepted the equation of knowledge with science and attacked
the hierarchical structure of bourgeois educational institutions.As“the standard
Wilhelm Liebknecht,Zu Trutz und Schutz.FestredegehaltenzumStiftungsfest des Crimmit-
schauerVolksvereins am22.Oktober 1871(Hottingen: Verlag der schweizerischenVolksbuch-
handlung, 1883),3.
The Socialist Project ofCultur eand Education 159