Arthur Lieberasch (2 November 1881 – 10 June 1967) was a Communist trades union official who became a member of the Parliament of Saxony ("Sächsischer Landtag") and, after 1933 an anti-government resistance activist. Life Provenance and early years Arthur Lieberasch was born in Döbeln, the third of his parents' ten children. His father, a tool-maker by trade, worked in the town's cigar factory. He attended school locally, and trained as a machinist. In 1900 or 1901 he joined the Metal Workers' Union. He joined the (recently rebranded and relaunched) Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1905. As a union shop steward and member of workers' councils he was frequently reprimanded. His union activism nevertheless meant that his reputation grew across the whole of Saxony. Trades union activist The decision of the SPD leadership to back parliamentary votes to fund the war was controversial among party members from the outset, and as slaughter on the front-line and destitution on the home front intensified, tensions within the party increased. That led to a split. Arthur Lieberasch was among the anti-war left-wingers who broke away to form the so-called Independent Social Democratic Party ("Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" / USPD) in 1917, being a founder member of the new party in Saxony. During 1917 Lieberasch was among the leaders of the strikes that broke out in Leipzig - initially mostly in the munitions factories - in response to the food shortages which had intensified during the so-called "turnip winter" of 1917 and in the aftermath an announcement by the authorities (accompanied by government statements trumpeting the success of submarine warfare), on 15 April 1917, of a cut in the weekly bread ration from 1,350g to 450g. Strikes broke out in various cities in response to the food crisis: Leipzig was exceptional for the extent to which conservative elements in the Social Democratic mainstream collaborated with the authorities to frustrate the strikers, reflecting the particularly stark divisions in the city between moderates and radicals on the political left. Lieberasch's role as a strike leader led to his being charged with High Treason. However, the revolutionary outbursts in the German ports and cities directly after the war left the authorities with more urgent priorities, and his case never went to trial. Revolutionary and Communist The revolutionary period lasted approximately nine months. Arthur Lieberasch took a leading position on the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils in Leipzig. Both the