Wilhelm Liebknecht has also worked on Der…

Wilhelm Liebknecht has also worked on Der Socialdemokrat from 1864 to 1865; however, he had soon found himself in disagreement with the paper's Prussia-friendly position, leaving the editorial staff and also being forced to leave the ADAV due to pressure from Schweitzer.

Expelled from Berlin, moves on July 2 to Leipzig, where he and August Bebel will become active in labor organizing.

Ferdinand August Bebel, known to all by his middle name, was born February 22, 1840, in Deutz, Germany, now a part of Cologne.

The son of a Prussian noncommissioned officer in the Prussian infantry, initially from Ostrowo in the Province of Posen, he was born in military barracks.

As a young man, Bebel had apprenticed as a carpenter and joiner in Leipzig.

Like most German workmen at that time, he had traveled extensively in search of work and he thereby obtained a firsthand knowledge of the difficulties facing the working people of the day.

At Salzburg, where he lived for some time, he joined a Roman Catholic workmen's club.

When in Tyrol in 1859, he had volunteered for service in the war against Italy, but was rejected; and in his own country he was rejected likewise as physically unfit for the army.

In 1860, he had settled in Leipzig as a master turner, making horn buttons, and joined various labor organizations.

Although initially an opponent of socialism, Bebel had gradually been won over to socialist ideas through reading the pamphlets of Ferdinand Lassalle, which had popularized the ideas of Karl Marx.

In 1865, he comes under the influence of Liebknecht and has becomes committed fully to the socialist cause.