Thomas Müntzer (1490–1525)

German thinker of utopian egalitarian communism and theologian; leader during the German Reformation and Peasant’s War in the early 16th century.

Müntzer was born around 1490 at Stolberg in the Harz mountains, Germany, into a craftsman’s family. In his early years, he studied at the universities of Leipzig and Mainz, where he systematically studied theology, philosophy and medicine. During his university years, he read a great deal of humanist and religious philosophical works, and earned a Bachelor of Theology and a Master of Natural Science degree with honors. After graduation from university, he served as a high school teacher, a priest and an abbot. In October 1517, the famous leader of religious reform in Germany Martin Luther published Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum (Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences) (the famous “Ninety-five Theses”), which publicly called for a debate on the indulgences, which had a tremendous impact on German society. Müntzer deeply agreed with Luther’s insights and joined the ranks of Luther’s Reformers, actively propagated Luther’s plea for Reformation, advocated the overthrow of the feudal system of estates by force and the establishment of the “Millennial Kingdom” based on public property, free from exploitation, oppression, private property, and class distinctions. From the end of 1524 to the beginning of 1525, Müntzer actively devoted himself to the German Peasant’s War and made propaganda and organizational work for the peasants’ uprising. In March 1525, he and Pfeiffer led the peasant uprising in Mühlhausen, overthrew the patrician city council, established the revolutionary body of power—the Eternal Council of Mühlhausen, and organized the peasants to resist against the siege of the feudal nobility. In May 1525, the peasant uprising he led was suppressed, and at the Battle of Frankenhausen he was wounded and captured, and on May 27 he was heroically executed.

Engels highly praised Müntzer, pointed out that he was a pioneer of modern socialism like Thomas More, and that Müntzer’s philosophy of religion touched upon atheism, so his political programme touched upon communism. In particular, Müntzer advocated the path of violent revolution, which has an important place in the history of the development of utopian socialism. However, Müntzer’s socialist doctrine were of a utopian nature and tinted with religious mysticism. In The Peasant War in Germany, Engels pointed out that Müntzer’s position at the head of the “Eternal Council” of Mühlhausen was indeed much more precarious than that of any modern revolutionary regent. Not only the movement of his time, but the whole century, was not ripe for the realization of the ideas for which he himself had only begun to grope. The social transformation that he pictured in his fantasy was so little grounded in the then existing economic conditions that the latter were a preparation for a social system diametrically opposed to that of which he dreamt.