Today marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg,Marxist theorist,
agitator, internationalist, philosopher, economist.Rosa was one of the most famous political figures of the last century. For the
international workers’ movement, she is renowned as a dedicated
socialist whose sacrifice and theoretical contributions to Marxism make
her one of history‘s foremost revolutionaries. The close proximity of
her birth date to International Women’s Day (8 March)
https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-socialist-roots-of-international.html means that this
year, more than ever, Rosa Luxemburg’s courageous life and revolutionary
ideas will be of continual interest to many.
Rosa Luxemburg was born on March 5, 1871, in the city of Zamosc, Poland,
then under control of czarist Russia. Her father, Eliasz Luxemburg, was
a prosperous timber trader, who had inherited his business from his
father, Abraham.
of Polish Jewish descent who
became a naturalized German citizen. Rosa’s mother was Lina Loewenstein, the daughter of a traditional rabbi
and sister of a Reform rabbi. Rosa, who grew up speaking German, Polish
and Yiddish, was the youngest of the couple’s five children. As a young
child, she suffered from a hip ailment, which left her permanently
afflicted with a limp.
During Poland’s 1863 uprising against Russian rule, Eliasz supplied the
independence movement with weapons, so that for several years after the
revolt’s failure, he had to remain in hiding from czarist authorities.
In 1873, the family moved with him to Warsaw, where Rosa attended the
gymnasium.
Even during high school, Rosa was drawn to politics, becoming active in
the Proletariat party, a forerunner to the Polish Socialist party. After
several of her comrades in the party were arrested and executed, she
decided to pursue her higher education in Switzerland. Luxemburg began at the University of Zurich as a student of zoology but
ended up focusing on economics, philosophy and law. Throughout her
political career, Luxemburg consistently opposed Polish
nationalism, believing that socialist action had to take place on the
international level, and that a separate revolution in Poland would be
self-defeating.
Similarly, she was opposed to Jewish nationalism or separatism. Though
she was sensitive to the problem of anti-Semitism, she was sure it would
disappear with the overthrow of capitalism. since 1899,she became an
important figure in the world socialist movement, and became involved in
the international organisation of workers overcoming physical infirmity
and the prejudice she faced as a Jew to become an active revolutionary
whose philosophy enriched every corner of an incredibly productive and
creative life.
After finishing her studies in 1898, Luxemburg moved to Germany, gaining
citizenship via a marriage of convenience and became a member of the
Social Democrat Party of Germany (SPD),which, unlike the German SPD of today, was developing into a
mass party of the working class. At that time, the social democrats had
a clear anti-capitalist orientation, invoking Marxist doctrine, she became lleader of the
radical wing of the Party , however she broke with the SPD after it
supported the
imperialist drive towards war, she believed in the build up to the First
World War that
' workers blood should not be shed in defence of the
capitalist system'.
The 1905 Russian revolution had a profound effect on discussions
within the international labour movement, at the time. Although it was
crushed, this event strengthened the revolutionary wing. There were
extensive discussions about the lessons from 1905, for example, the role
of the mass strike.
In the period running up to the 1905 revolution, massive strikes had
already shaken the Russian Empire: individual strikes quickly spread
like wildfire.Unlike many SPD leaders, Luxemburg enthusiastically supported a new form
of workers’ struggle – the mass strike. When revolution broke out in
Russia in 1905, she seized the opportunity to study this phenomenon at
first hand, hailing it in her book The Mass Strike as :
“the natural
method to mobilise the broadest proletarian layers into action, to
revolutionise and organise them” and simultaneously a means “to
undermine and overthrow the established State power as well as to curb
capitalist exploitation”.She argued that " The mass strike is the first natural,
impulsive form of every great revolutionary struggle of the proletariat
and the more highly developed the antagonism is between capital and
labour, the more effective and decisive must mass strikes become. The
chief form of bourgeois revolutions, the fight at the barricades, the
open conflict with the armed poor of the state, is in the revolution
today only the culminating point, only a moment on the process of the
proletarian mass struggle."
Returning to the false separation between
economic and political struggle, she pointed out that in a revolutionary
period the economic struggle grows into a political one, and vice
versa. There is a reciprocal influence between the two, as each enriches
and deepens the other. The Mass Strike shows in detail how this occurs;
it also demonstrates how completely justified she was to have faith in
the ability of the working class to grow and learn and lead the struggle
for a better world. Rosa Luxemburg recognised that the political action of a
mass strike is one of the most important tools of the working class in
its struggle for liberation.
The right-wing of the SPD and the trade union leaders, of the time,
rejected this position, arguing that mass strikes are only possible when
the entire working class is organised and trade union coffers are
filled to the brim.
Though Luxemburg was militant about the idea of proletarian revolution,
she was also strongly anti-militarist. She believed in democracy and was an outspoken
opponent of the Bolsheviks’ belief that a small cadre of bureaucrats
should made political decisions on behalf of the proletariat: Revolution
had to be political as well as economic, she felt.
Because of her socialist agitation during this
terrible war , she spent the majority of the years from the outbreak of World War One in
1914 to the revolution of November 1918 behind bars, imprisoned for
being one of the very few people in Germany with the courage to speak
out against the slaughter unfolding in the trenches. In the Junius
Pamphlet, written from her freezing prison cell in early 1915, she painted a vivid
picture of the choice she believed humanity faced in those
years:
“Either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all
civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation,
degeneration—a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism, that means
the conscious active struggle of the international proletariat against
imperialism and its method of war”.
She scolds those who sit quietly as injustice is done:
" Violated, dishonored, wading in blood, dripping filth – there stands
bourgeois society. This is it [in reality]. Not all spic and span and
moral, with pretense to culture, philosophy, ethics, order, peace, and
the rule of law – but the ravening beast, the witches’ sabbath of
anarchy, a plague to culture and humanity. Thus, it reveals itself in
its true, its naked form."
After Germany's
defeat she was released, and with her friend Karl Liebnecht,
formed the anti war Spartacist league, and she assumed the leadership of the
radical independent socialists. Her will and her desire was to see an
end to all exploitation and oppression.
Her faith was a socialist idea that combined the powerful passion of
both mind and heart. She devoted herself to the cause of revolution,and
its preparation. She lived and breathed its fire, with selflessness and
devotion, in every waking moment she dedicated herself to its cause.
Standing bravely up for freedom with a strong powerful intellect. An
individualist, she formulated her own ideas, using her own words to
energise and radicalise the people and bring about a socialist
revolution.
She followed no leader, was no ones puppet and while Rosa was enthusiastic about the Russian revolution, she
nevertheless criticized Lenin, her lifelong comrade, for his concession
of democracy and centralist tactics such as the dissolution of the
Provisional Government and Constituent Assembly. Luxemburg defended
democracy as an integral part of the process of revolution as well as
its goal. When she criticised
Lenin, it was in relation to dictatorial aspects. She said " Terror has
not crushed us. How can you put your trust in terror."
She quoted Leon Trotsky saying
"As Marxists we have never been idol worshippers of formal democracy." She went on "All that really means is: We have always distinquished the social
kernal of social inequality and lack of freedom hidden under the sweet
shell of formal equality and freedom - not in order to reject the latter
but to spur the working class into being satisfied with the shell, but
rather, by conquering political power, to create a socialist democracy to
replace bourgeois democracy - not to eliminate democracy
altogether....... but socialist democracy is not something which begins
only in the promised land, after the foundations of socialist economy
are created, it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the
worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of
socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the
beginnings of the destruction of class rule and the construction of
socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the
Socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the
proletariat. Yes, dictatorship! But this dictatorship consists in the
manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination, but in energetic,
resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic
relationships of bourgeois society, without which a socialist
transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the
work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of
the class - that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active
participation of the masses, it must be under their direct influence,
subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out
of the political training of the mass of the people."
Possibly her believe in democracy is what failed her philosophically,
nevertheless the questions she posed still worth looking at today. She
also wrote " the revolution is the sole form of war, and this is also
its most vital law - in which the final victory can be prepared only by a
sense of defeat.".
She had determination by the buckets and a steely willful commitment.She
herself took part in revolutionary events , recognising the need
of a revolutionary party, which could unite and give a lead in a
revolutionary situation, seeing socialism as a movement of the
proletarian masses that should emphasise unity and equality rather than
highlight the oppression of any particular group, with an undogmatic
commitment to an unfinished notion of freedom that still appeals to
many people today.
In November 1918 after four years of war, German society crumbled both
at the front at home, and a revolutionary fervour swept the land, the
working class took to the streets in a series of strikes and the navy
mutinied., though critical with some demands of the revolutionary
movement, Rosa threw in her lot with her comrades, believing that she
could not simply wait on the sidelines. Subsequently on the night of
January 15, 1919 she
and Liebnecht were abducted, tortured in the luxury Hotel Eden, and
then driven seperately to the nearby Tiergarten Park and murdered,
Liebknecht was delivered to the city morgue while Luxemburg’s skull
was smashed by a rifle butt and her body dumped into Berlin’s Landwehr
canal. They were both 47.
Her body was only recovered five months later after the winter ice had
thawed. She was buried next to Liebknecht in the Friedrichstelde
Cemetery.
Famously on the evening of her murder almost certainly knowing that her fate was sealed she wrote.
'"The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be
recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the
decicive element, they are the rock on which the final victors of the
revolution will be built. Order reigns in Berlin! Your 'order' is built
on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already raise itself with a
rattle and announce with fanfare, to tour terror; I was, I am, I shall
be!"
The murders of Luxemburg and Liebknecht were a major blow to the
immediate hopes of the German (and by extension, the world’s) working
class. But Luxemburg’s legacy as a revolutionary activist and theorist
couldn’t be extinguished so easily. Her ideas, whether on the question
of reform versus revolution, the significance of the mass strike or the
civilisation-threatening barbarism of imperialist war, are as relevant
today as ever.
Today 150 years after her birth she has left an indelible mark on history, her ideas can be pressed into many meanings. There is a feminist
Rosa, an anarchist Rosa, then there is a red Rosa, but she remains an
icon in the truest sense of the word. “She was the sharp sword, the living flame of revolution.” So wrote Clara Zetkin in her obituary for her close friend and comrade, Rosa Luxemburg. The words are a fitting tribute to a woman who was an outstanding leader of the socialist movement who never shied away from speaking her mind..
She has become part of Germany's
cultural memory, immortalised in art, poetry, an award winning biopic, a
musical and a graphic novel. And in her own words too, as well as being a
brilliant Marxist theorist. Luxemburg was a prolific writer of letters,
and her emotive lyrical writing has seen her emerge as a literary
figure in her own right. Here's to Red Rosa, lets hope her spirit is not
forgotten. Peace, bread, roses, Her revolutionary socialist politics
endure because the struggle against barbarism remain as relevant as
ever.
Here is poem written by Bertolt Brecht in 1920 about Rosa.
About the drowned girl - Bertolt Brecht
As she drowned, she swam downwards and was borne,
From the smaller streams to the larger rivers,
In wonder the opal of the heavens shone,
As if wishing to placate the body that was hers.
Catching hold of her were the seaweed , the algae,
Slowly she became heavy as downwards she went,
Cool fish swam around her legs, freely,
Animals and plants weight to her body lent.
Dark light smoke in the evenings the heavens grew,
But early in the morning the stars dangled, there was light,
So that for her, there remained too,
Morning and evening, day and night.
Her cold body rotted in the waters there,
Slowly, step by step, god too forgot,
First her face, then her hands, and finally her hair
She became carrion of which the rivers have a lot.
Luxemburg and Liebknecht are commemorated every year on the second
Sunday of January when red flowers are scattered on their graves.
Red Rosa now has vanished too.
Where she lies is hid from view.
She told the poor what life is about
And so the rich have rubbed her out
- Bertolt Brecht, "Epitaph, 1919"
She was also much admired by Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893 -1978), a
musicologist, composer, poet and novelist, who gained little recognition
for her poetry during her own lifetime, who once joked, ' I intend to be
a posthumous poet!
Like Rosa Luxemburg, she was appalled by the militarism of the First
World War. Here is her tribute to Rosa Luxemburg , first published in
her 1925 collection
The Espalier.
I Bring Her a Flower
Sweet faith
Such looks of quiet hath
That those on whom she’s smiled
Lie down to sleep as easy as a child.
No night,
However dark, can fright
Them, no, nor day
To come, however bleak and fell, dismay.
But sound
Sleep they in prison-bound
As when at liberty
And if they wake, they wake in charity;
Like her,
Who rousing at the jar
Of weary foot in the rain
Pitied the wakeful sentry for his pain.
(1925)
Further Reading
Rosa Luxemburg: A reapraisal - Lelio Besco
Andre Deutsch, 1975.
Rosa Luxemburg: A life
- Elizvieta Ettinga , Beacon Press 1987.
The letters of Rosa Luxemburg, Verso
The essential Rosa Luxemburg :Reform or Revolution and the Mass Strike
Red Rosa;a Graphic biography of Rosa Luxemburg - Kate Evans. Verso
"
either capitalism will continue, with fresh wars and a rapid plunge
intp chaos and anarchy, or else capitalist exploitation will be
abolished." Rosa Luxemburg 14/12/18 Rote Fahne
"Revolutionary idealism .... can be maintained over any period
of time only through the intensely active life of the masses themselves
under conditions of unlimited freedom." Rosa Luxemburg
" Being human means throwing your whole life on the scales of destiny when need be."Rosa Luxemburg
