Abstract
For those with a socialist politics that is uncompromising in both its commitment to democracy and its opposition to capitalism, it is common to raise the name of Rosa Luxemburg. A Polish German secular Jew, a Marxist political economist and political theorist, she was the most prominent leader of the left wing of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a founder of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) and, later, the Spartacus League and the German Communist Party (KPD). Repeatedly jailed for her political activities in both Poland and Germany, she was ultimately murdered with her comrade Karl Liebknecht by the right-wing SPD leadership’s militarist Freikorps (Volunteer Corps) allies in the aftermath of the failed Spartacus Revolt in Berlin in 1919. Luxemburg thus became both a heroine and a martyr of the socialist workers’ movement. Though the Communist International of Josef Stalin, in the 1930s, denounced her as a “counterrevolutionary Menshevik” and sought to eradicate her influence, anti-Stalinist Marxists of various stripes came to her defense, however critically, and would continue to do so in subsequent decades.1 And even today, more than 94 years after her death, Rosa Luxemburg refuses to finally die.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Georg Adler, Peter Hudis, and Annelies Laschitza, eds.; George Shriver, trans. The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg (London: Verso, 2011).
Estrella Trincado, “The Current Relevance of Rosa Luxemburg’s Thought,” Socialist Studies /Études socialistes Vol. 6 No. 2 (Fall 2010), p. 142.
See Peter Hudis, ed., The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Volume 1: Economic Writings I (London: Verso, 2013).
Stephen Eric Bronner, “Red Dreams and the New Millennium: Notes on the Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg,” New Politics Vol. 8 No. 3 (Summer 2001), p. 162.
Stephen Eric Bronner, “Rosa Redux: A Reply to David Camfield and Alan Johnson,” New Politics Vol. 8 No. 4 (Winter 2002), p. 160.
David Camfield, “A Second Reply to Bronner,” New Politics Vol. 8 No. 4 (Winter 2002), p. 141.
Paul Le Blanc, “Why Should We Care What Rosa Luxemburg Thought?,” New Politics Vol. 9 No. 1 (Summer 2002), p. 204.
John Holloway, Change The World without Taking Power (London: Pluto Press, 2002);
John Holloway, Crack Capitalism (London: Pluto Press, 2010).
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2013 Jason Schulman
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schulman, J. (2013). Introduction Reintroducing Red Rosa. In: Schulman, J. (eds) Rosa Luxemburg. Critical Political Theory and Radical Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137343321_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137343321_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-46810-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-34332-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)