Rosa Luxemburg: Biography Of This Marxist Philosopher And Activist
Known as “the Red Rose”, Rosa Luxemburg was a leader of Polish and Jewish origin who had a huge impact on German society at the beginning of the 20th century.
His ideas with a strong Marxist base and his criticism of armed conflicts, in which brothers faced off against brothers, made him cry out to the sky and he defended that workers’ strikes were the best way to demonstrate against the conflicts perpetrated. by the capitalist powers.
Despite being a victim of the prejudices of her time against who she was, she knew how to overcome obstacles and become one of the great female voices of the workers’ revolution. Let’s find out who this political leader was through a biography of Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Polish-German revolutionary who began working in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and who was an inspiration for communist movements in Europe
Despite being a supporter of the doctrines originally defended by her party, her criticism of the belligerent drift of the party and the Second German Reich during the First World War cost her imprisonment on several occasions.
She was a prolific writer, with vast theoretical and practical production In his works, the themes that are part of his legacy stand out and that constitute, once he died, what was called “Luxembourgism”, a Marxist school with its own characteristics: pacifist, against revisionism and defender of democracy within of the revolution. His positions, sometimes very inflexible, made him confront very relevant figures within Marxist socialism such as Lenin, Trotsky, Bernstein and even Kautsky.
Rosa Luxemburg always argued in favor of internationalism as a way of thinking, living and acting. Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto ended with the famous phrase “Proletarians of all countries, unite!” and Luxembourg together with Karl Liebknecht would make it their own, especially during the First World War. Social democracy had traditionally defended that, in the event of war between capitalist powers, workers should refuse to fight and go on general strike but this was not the case of the SPD, in whose actions the country prevailed over the social class and supported the war.
It is for all this that the figure of Rosa Luxemburg has acquired such a transcendental role in recent history. Criticism of the war and criticism of those who did not apply true internationalist Marxism. Added to this, her condition as a Polish and Jewish woman fighting against adversity in a society in which practically everyone put obstacles in her way has made her a true feminist reference.
Early years
Rosa Luxemburg was born on March 5, 1871 in Zamość, near Lublin, in Poland under the Russian Empire His parents were Eliasz Luksenburg III, a lumber merchant, and her mother was Line Löwenstein, being the fifth child of the marriage. He grew up in a family of Jewish origin in a society in which, if the Poles already found it difficult to stand out in Tsarist Russia, it was even more difficult for the Jews.
But despite prejudice and adversity, Rosa Luxemburg’s brilliant intelligence allowed her to study, attending a women’s institute in Warsaw in 1880 She was so intelligent that, years later, her friend Franz Mehring would define her as “the best brain after Marx”, although she did not stand out for having good organizational skills.
As for her physical appearance, she was a mixture of strength and tenderness, described as a small woman, with a large head and typically Jewish features with a large nose and a slight limp due to a congenital defect. The first impression of her was not favorable, but it was enough to talk to her for a few minutes to discover the life and energy contained in this woman of great intellect and impeccable oratory.
Exile to Switzerland and refuge in Germany
While attending women’s high school, she had the opportunity to hear about the Polish leftist party “Proletariat”, which she ended up joining. When he finished his studies, and due to his socialist militancy, Luxembourg had to go into exile to Switzerland in 1889 when he was only 18 years old He would end up in Zurich, where he would study several degrees at the university at the same time: philosophy, history, politics, economics and mathematics.
In the Swiss country he not only dedicated himself to studying, but also to establish contact with other socialist exiles further expanding his knowledge of Marxism and fueling his desire for revolution, especially in his country of origin.
In 1898 he decided to move to Germany with the intention of joining the powerful German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and participating in the theoretical debates, heated since the deaths of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Luxemburg was the only one of all who remained firm to Marxist ideas, so, starting in 1906, she held important positions in the party leadership together with Karl Liebknecht.
In this period, Luxembourg founded the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and created a newspaper called “The Workers’ Cause.” He was not a nationalist, nor did he believe in the self-determination of Poles or other peoples. She wanted the workers of the world to unite across national and cultural boundaries. However, being born in a country under the rule of another made him understand the need and potential for revolution and resistance to historical injustices.
In 1898 Berlin would become his home, where he would live for the rest of his life There she married Gustav Lübeck, the son of a friend with whom she never lived, but who helped her obtain German citizenship. This was a strategic move, since Rosa Luxemburg was convinced that Germany would begin the definitive revolution.
Luxemburg was associated with Karl Kautsky and became the representation of the orthodoxy of Marxism in the face of the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein. He made important theoretical contributions regarding imperialism and the collapse of capitalism, which in his opinion was considered a matter of time before it occurred.
Beginning of the 20th century
Between 1904 and 1906 Luxembourg was turned into a political prisoner because of her constant manifestos against imperialism and wars against other powers , policies that ironically had been defended by the SPD. While she was not in prison, she dedicated herself to teaching future members of the party, among whom Friedrich Ebert, future president of the Weimar Republic, stands out. Curiously, Ebert would be the one who gave the order to arrest the insurgent communists after the First World War.
In 1913 Luxemburg published what is considered his main work: “The Accumulation of Capital” (“Die Akkumulation des Kapitals: Ein Beitrag zur ökonomischen Erklärung des Imperialismus”). In this book he made important contributions to Marxism, especially related to imperialism and the theory of the general strike. Although this work captures a clearly revolutionary spirit and support for strikes, Luxembourg also stands out for being critical of violence and opting for pacifism.
With the passage of time too He distanced himself from Kautsky and the rest of the party as they moved toward parliamentary methods This would end up making her the main leader of the most leftist wing of the SPD. Despite this, she was also critical of her main leftist references, including Vladimir Lenin himself for his centralist and authoritarian conception of the party of professional revolutionaries.
The Spartacist League
At the beginning of the First World War (1914-1918) Rosa Luxemburg would lead, together with Karl Liebknecht, several protests, motivated by the fact that the SPD had definitively renounced pacifist internationalism and support the conflict. As a result of criticizing her own party and the decisions that Germany was making in the war, Luxembourg would return to prison in 1915, already being known as “the Red Rose.”
Despite his confinement, Luxembourg continued to have a huge influence writing from prison During the time she remained in the shadows, Rosa Luxemburg wrote, together with other members of the party who were critical of the party, the so-called “Letters from Spartacus”, pamphlets opposing the armed conflict signed in the name of the mythical Thracian gladiator.
These letters ended up becoming the bases of the Spartacist movement, also known as the “Spartacist League,” founded in 1918, the year in which Luxembourg would be released from prison. A year later, this league would definitively split from the SPD and become the German Communist Party (KPD).
But despite having been the intellectual founder of the German Communist Party, Luxemburg wrote several essays in which she warned of the dangers of the Bolshevik revolution ending in a dictatorship. After the Russian Revolution of October 1917, Luxembourg reprimanded the Bolsheviks for dissolving the elected Constituent Assembly and eliminating rival parties She herself said:
“Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of a party, no matter how numerous they may be, is not freedom at all.
And he defended:
“Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for those who think differently.”
Related article: “Friedrich Engels: biography of this revolutionary philosopher”
Last years and death
At the end of the First World War and Germany was defeated, Luxembourg advocated participating in the Assembly that would end up giving rise to the Weimar Republic , something that his fellow communists who decided to organize an insurrectional movement did not support. They were post-war times, a dark time for Germany that had just seen its emperor William II forced to abdicate.
In 1919 Luxembourg, together with his colleague Liebknecht, decided to launch the Spartacist Revolution. From January 5 to 12, 1919, Berlin became the scene of a large general strike The protesters dreamed of replicating on German soil what had happened in Russia, putting an end to the tyranny of a few and giving the decision to govern to all. It was the previous step for a proletarian society.
These strikes in the German capital would become known as the Spartacist Uprising, although in reality the Spartacist League did not call or lead it. However, and given the great importance that the movement was acquiring, the League ended up cooperating, although with its reluctance. In fact, Rosa Luxemburg herself pointed out that the situation of Germany in 1919 and that of Russia in 1917 was not the same and that the people did not have what was necessary to overthrow the government.
And, indeed, he was right. Everything was against her, this insurrection being what would mark the end of the Polish-German leader. The president of the Weimar Republic, Friedrich Ebert, who would have been a ward of Luxembourg, ordered the Freikorps to stop the rebellion This small paramilitary group, considered a kind of proto-Nazi, arrested Rosa Luxemburg along with Karl Liebnecht on January 15, 1919.
They beat, tortured and humiliated her. One of her paramilitaries broke her skull by hitting him with the butt of her rifle. With blood pouring from her wound, Rosa Luxemburg was put into a car where she would be shot to death and thrown into Berlin’s Landwehr canal. She was 47 years old.
Four and a half months later A body was found that was concluded to be that of Rosa Luxemburg judging by her gloves and the remains of her dress Although it cannot be stated that these were his true remains, the discovery and subsequent burial of him was an event that allowed the people to express their pain and the feeling of seeking justice. She was hated and loved in equal parts, those who idolized her made a lot of noise so that the world knew that she was gone, a great leader.
She would be farewelled at her funeral by her friend Clara Zetkin, a teammate in the Spartacist league, with the following words:
“In Rosa Luxemburg, the socialist idea was a dominant and powerful passion of the heart and brain; a truly creative passion that burned incessantly. (…) Rosa was the sharp sword, the living flame of the revolution.”
It is believed that the last words the influential Marxist leader wrote were:
“Tomorrow the revolution will rise vibrantly and announce with its fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am and I will be!”
