Rosa
Luxemburg, the youngest of five children of a lower middle-class Jewish
family was born in Zamosc, in the Polish area of Russia,
on 5th March, 1871. She became interested in politics while still
at school and in an attempt to escape the authoritarian government
of Alexander III, emigrated to Zurich
in 1889 where she studied law and political economy.
While
in Switzerland she met other socialist revolutionaries from Russia
living in exile including, Alexandra Kollontai,
George Plekhanov, Leo
Jogiches and Pavel Axelrod. In
1893 Luxemburg joined with Leo Jogiches
to form the Social Democratic Party of Poland. As it was an illegal
organization, she went to Paris to edit the party's newspaper, Sprawa
Robotnicza (Workers' Cause).
Luxemburg
married Gustav
Lubeck in 1898 in order to gain German citizenship. She now settled
in Berlin where she joined the Social Democratic
Party. A committed revolutionary, Luxemburg campaigned with Karl
Kautsky against the revisionist Eduard
Bernstein, who argued that the best way to obtain socialism in
an industrialized country was through trade union activity and parliamentary
politics. In 1905 August Bebel appointed
Luxemburg editor of SPD newspaper, Vorwarts
(Forward).
During
the 1905 Revolution Luxemburg and Leo
Jogiches returned
to Warsaw where they were soon arrested. Luxemburg's experiences during
the failed revolution changed her views on international politics.
Until then, Luxemburg believed
that a socialist revolution was most likely to take place in an advanced
industrialized country such as Germany or
France. She now argued it could happen in
an underdeveloped country like Russia.
In
1906 Luxemburg published
her thoughts on revolution in The Mass Strike,
the Political Party, and the Trade Unions.
She argued that a general strike had the power to radicalize the workers
and bring about a socialist revolution.
Luxemburg
taught at the Social Democratic Party
school
in Berlin between 1907 and 1914. Her book on economic imperialism,
The Accumulation of Capital, was
published in 1913. She continued to advocate the need for a violent
overthrow of capitalism and she gradually became alienated from previous
party colleagues, Karl Kautsky
and
August Bebel.
Luxemburg
and Leo Jogiches took
the side of the Mensheviks in their
struggle with the Bolsheviks. As a
result Vladimir Lenin favoured the Polish
section led by Karl Radek over those of
Luxemburg.
Those on
the left-wing of the Social Democratic
Party, like Luxemburg, were opposed to Germany's participation
in the First World War. In December, 1914,she
joined with Karl
Liebknecht,
Leo
Jogiches,
Paul Levi, Ernest
Meyer, Franz Mehring and Clara
Zetkin to establish an underground political organization called
Spartakusbund (Spartacus
League).
The Spartacus
League publicized its views in its illegal newspaper, Spartacus
Letters, that was edited by Karl
Liebknecht, whereas Luxemburg wrote the highly influential
pamphlet, The Crisis in the German Social
Democracy (1916).
On 1st
May, 1916, the Spartacus League decided
to come out into the open and organized a demonstration against the
First World War in Berlin. Several of its leaders,
including Luxemburg and Karl
Liebknecht were arrested and imprisoned. While in prison
Luxemburg wrote The Russian
Revolution, where she criticized
Vladimir Lenin and the dictatorial and terrorist methods being
used by the Bolsheviks
in Russia.
Luxemburg
was not released until October, 1918, when Max
von Baden granted an amnesty to all political prisoners. Two months
later Luxemburg joined with Karl
Liebknecht, Leo
Jogiches,
Paul Levi, Ernest
Meyer, Franz Mehring and Clara
Zetkin to establish the German Communist
Party (KPD).
In January,
1919, Luxemburg helped organize the Spartakist
Rising in Berlin. Friedrich Ebert,
the leader of the Social Democrat Party and
Germany's new chancellor, called in the German
Army and the Freikorps to bring
an end to the rebellion. By 13th January the rebellion had been crushed
and most of its leaders were arrested.
Rosa
Luxemburg and
Karl Liebknecht were executed without
trial on 15th January, 1919. Leo Jogiches
was
later murdered while trying to track down her killers.
(1) Rosa
Luxemburg wrote about the 1905 Revolution
in her pamphlet, Mass Strike, Party and Trade Unions.
For the
first time in the history of the class struggle it (1905 Russian Revolution)
has achieved a grandiose realization of the idea of the mass strike
and has brought the idea of the mass strike to maturity, and therefore
opened a new epoch in the development of the labour movement.
(2)
Rosa Luxemburg was very impressed
by the role that the Soviets played in
the 1905 Revolution and believed it could play an important role in
a future revolution in Germany.
We have not merely to develop the system of workers' and
soldiers' councils, but we have to induce the agricultural labourers
and the poorer peasants to adopt this council system. We have to seize
power, and the problem of the seizure of power poses the question:
what does each workers' and soldiers' council in all Germany do, what
can it do, and what must it do?
(3)
Rosa Luxemburg speech made in Stuttgart in 1907.
In the event of war threatening to break out, it is the
duty of the workers and their parliamentary representatives in the
countries involved to do everything possible to prevent the outbreak
of war by taking suitable measures, which can, of course, be changed
or intensified in accordance with the exacerbation of the class struggle
and the general political situation.
Should
the war break out nevertheless, it is their duty to advocate its speedy
end and to utilize the economic and political crisis brought about
by the war to rouse the various social strata and to hasten the overthrow
of capitalist class rule.
(4)
Rosa Luxemburg, The Russian Revolution (1918)
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one
who thinks differently.
(5)
Morgan Philips Price, My Three Revolutions
(1969)
Karl Radek
had furnished me in Moscow with introductions to Karl Liebknecht and
Rosa Luxemburg, the famous Spartakist leaders in Germany. So I began
to search for them and, after a while, I found the headquarters of
the Spartakusbund, the most revolutionary of all the German Left parties.
After my credentials had been carefully inspected, I was taken to
see Rosa Luxemburg.
A slight
little woman, she showed at once a powerful intellect and a quiet
grasp of any given situation. She had heard about me and of the fact
that I had taken up a strong stand against the Allied intervention
in Russia. She proceeded to question me about the situation in Russia.
I told her how the White Counter-Revolution had been beaten on the
Volga and thrown back to Siberia, but that Lenin had spoken to me
not long before with some apprehension of the possibility of Allied
military support for the Russian Whites in South Russia, now that
the Dardanelles and Black Sea were open to British and French warships.
Then she asked me a question, the significance of which I did not
appreciate at the time. She asked me if the Soviets were working entirely
satisfactorily. I replied, with some surprise, that of course they
were. She looked at me for a moment, and I remember an indication
of slight doubt on her face, but she said nothing more. Then we talked
about something else and soon after that I left.
Though
at the moment when she asked me that question I was a little taken
aback, I soon forgot about it. I was still so dedicated to the Russian
Revolution, which I had been defending against the Western Allies'
war of intervention, that I had had no time for anything else. But
a week or two later I began to hear that Rosa Luxemburg differed from
Lenin on several matters of revolutionary policy, and especially about
the role of the Communist Party in the Workers' and Peasants' Councils,
or Soviets. She did not like the Russian Communist Party monopolizing
all power in the Soviets and expelling anyone who disagreed with it.
She feared that Lenin's policy had brought about, not the dictatorship
of the working classes over the middle classes, which she approved
of but the dictatorship of the Communist Party over the working classes.
The dictatorship of a class - yes, she said, but not the dictatorship
of a party over a class. Later, I began to see that Luxemburg had
much wisdom in her attitude, though it was not apparent to me at the
time. Looking back, it seems that she was not so critical of Lenin's
tactics for Russia. She did not want them applied to Germany. Alas,
she never lived to use her influence on her colleagues in the Spartakusbund
for more than a few weeks after I saw her.
(6)
Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg (1919)
In Rosa Luxemburg the socialist idea was a dominating
and powerful passion of both mind and heart, a consuming and creative
passion. To prepare for the revolution, to pave the way for socialism
- this was the task and the one great ambition of this exceptional
woman. To experience the revolution, to fight in its battles - this
was her highest happiness. With will-power, selflessness and devotion,
for which words are too weak, she engaged her whole being and everything
she had to offer for socialism. She sacrificed herself to the cause,
not only in her death, but daily and hourly in the work and the struggle
of many years. She was the sword, the flame of revolution.
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