In The Steps Of Rosa Luxemburg

This first English compilation of political texts by Paul Levi, who successfully led the KPD until forced out by the pressure for Bolshevisation, offers a new perspective on the early history of German Communism.

This first English compilation of political texts by Paul Levi, who successfully led the KPD until forced out by the pressure for ‘Bolshevisation’, offers a new perspective on the early history of German Communism.

Born in Tsarist Poland in 1871, Rosa Luxemburg was a member of an illegal socialist organization by the time she was 16. She was active in the Polish underground and had to be smuggled to Zurich after a wave of strikes. She later moved to Germany, to be at the centre of international socialism, and became a prominent political leader. She was imprisoned for her outspoken opposition to the World War I and later led thousands of workers in the German uprising of 1918. A few months later she was brutally murdered, beaten to death by soldiers acting on government orders.

On the tracks of the killers of Rosa Luxemburg The cold-blooded murder of revolutionary icons Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in the pitched political battles of post-WWI Germany marks one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century. No other political assassination inflamed popular passions and transformed Germany's political climate as that killing in the night of 15-16 January 1919 in front of the luxurious Hotel Eden. It not only cut short the lives of two of the country's most brilliant political leaders, but also inaugurated a series of further political assassinations designed to snuff out the revolutionary flame and, ultimately, pave the way for the ultra-reactionary forces that would take power in 1933. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of their untimely deaths, Klaus Gietinger has carefully reconstructed the events on that fateful night, digging deep into the archives to identify who exactly was responsible for the murder, and what forces in high-placed positions had a hand in facilitating it and protecting the culprits.

The most comprehensive collection of letters by Rosa Luxemburg ever published in English, this book includes 190 letters written to leading figures in the European and international labor and socialist movements––Leo Jogiches, Karl Kautsky, Clara Zetkin and Karl Liebknecht––who were among her closest friends, lovers and colleagues. Much of this correspondence appears for the first time in English translation; all of it helps to illuminate the inner life of this iconic revolutionary, who was at once an economic and social theorist, a political activist and a lyrical stylist. Her political concerns are revealed alongside her personal struggles within a socialist movement that was often hostile to independently minded women. This collection will provide readers with a newer and deeper appreciation of Luxemburg as a writer and historical figure.

Rosa Luxemburg lived a revolutionary life which determined her theoretical reflections about revolution and the role of the masses within it. The present study provides an analysis of Luxemburg's thoughts about and experiences with revolutionary processes and shows how she further developed Marxist ideas about the path and methods to achieve a democratic socialism as the result of a successful revolution. Next to the theoretical debate with Eduard Bernstein and her experiences during the Russian Revolution of 1905, the book also takes a closer look at Luxemburg's theoretical reflections about revolution in the years before and during the First World War, the Russian Revolution of 1917 as well as the German Revolution of 1918/19. The book therefore offers a concise analysis of Luxemburg's life as well as her combination of revolution theory and revolutionary practice.

Lelio Basso was a major thinker and political leader of Italian socialism; his writings – translated for the first time – provide highly original contributions on anti-fascist struggles, and a rethinking of Marxism centred on Rosa Luxemburg, Italy’s radical politics and internationalism.

Rosa Luxemburg's corruscating politics texts on the 1905 Revolution This collection is the first of three volumes of the Complete Works devoted to the central theme of Rosa Luxemburg’s life and work—revolution. Spanning the years 1897 to the end of 1905, they contain speeches, articles, and essays on the strikes, protests, and political debates that culminated in the 1905 Russian Revolution—one of the most important social upheavals of modern times. Luxemburg’s near-daily articles and reports during 1905 on the ongoing revolution (which comprises the bulk of this volume) shed new light on such issues as the relation of spontaneity and organization, the role of national minorities in social revolution, and the inseparability of the struggle for socialism from revolutionary democracy. We become witness to Luxemburg’s effort to respond to the impulses, challenges, and ideas arising from a living revolutionary process, which in turn becomes the source of much of her subsequent political theory—such as her writings on the mass strike, her strident internationalism, and her insistence that revolutionary struggle never take its eyes off of the need to transform the human personality. Virtually all of these writings appear in English for the first time (translated from both German and Polish) and many have only recently been identified as having been written by Luxemburg.