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Rebel's Guide to Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was one of the key leaders of the German revolutionary left until her murder by right wing militiamen in 1919 at the height of the attempted revolution. A young, Polish, Jewish woman, she had fearlessly taken on the theoretical giants of the Social Democratic Party of Germany in defence of revolutionary Marxism. This Rebel's guide puts forward Luxemburg's case. She was an orator, teacher and leader who stood in the classical Marxist tradition - this little book shines a light on an all too often overlooked revolutionary.
59 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
September 25, 2015
If you consider the classical theorists of Marxism you will find they are almost all men; Marx, Engels, Lenin, Plekhanov, Bakunin and so on. There is a single significant female voice; that of Rosa Luxemburg. She was a Polish Jew who played a central part in the revolutionary left in Germany in the early twentieth century.
This is a straightforward and brief account of her life and thought; a taster really. It outlines the main fracture lines in Marxist theory and where Luxemburg placed herself. The author isn’t unbiased, but it is a good account of Luxemburg’s thought placed in the historical context which makes it more easily understandable.
Luxemburg was a polemicist and apparently a very fine orator; not afraid to challenge anyone (including Lenin at one point). She provided an analysis of the relationship between capitalism and imperialism, nationalism and had strong views on how change should come about. She argued for the importance of the mass strike; for those in the UK, she wouldn’t have been a Corbyn fan as she did not believe the left should compromise with social democracy.
During the First World War she tried to organise strikes against the war in Germany and as a result spent most of the war in jail. She died just after the war during an attempted revolution in Berlin.
This is a good starting point for anyone interested in Luxemburg’s thought.
This is a straightforward and brief account of her life and thought; a taster really. It outlines the main fracture lines in Marxist theory and where Luxemburg placed herself. The author isn’t unbiased, but it is a good account of Luxemburg’s thought placed in the historical context which makes it more easily understandable.
Luxemburg was a polemicist and apparently a very fine orator; not afraid to challenge anyone (including Lenin at one point). She provided an analysis of the relationship between capitalism and imperialism, nationalism and had strong views on how change should come about. She argued for the importance of the mass strike; for those in the UK, she wouldn’t have been a Corbyn fan as she did not believe the left should compromise with social democracy.
During the First World War she tried to organise strikes against the war in Germany and as a result spent most of the war in jail. She died just after the war during an attempted revolution in Berlin.
This is a good starting point for anyone interested in Luxemburg’s thought.
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March 7, 2024Great introduction to Luxemburg's life and works (and its tragic end). Her writings just go to show that at every step in history, when humans and society did immoral things, somebody knew. At the time of slavery in the United States, people knew it was wrong, yet we always say that 'it was a different time'.
« Luxemburg argued that it was impossible for production to expand "in a society in which there are only capitalists and workers", as in Marx's model in Capital. Workers, by definition the exploited class, wouldn't have enough wages to buy the expanded amount of goods. There would be a crisis of underconsumption and the capitalists would have to look abroad to non-capitalist markets to realise their profits. In doing this they would effectively export capitalism, import cheap raw materials and increase the stability of the imperialist power at home.
So for Luxemburg imperial expansion into non-capitalist areas is necessary to capitalist accumulation, but also destroys those areas and absorbs them into capitalism. Thus, in reality, there are very real, physical limits to expansion. Once it absorbs all non-capitalist areas, capitalism must collapse into terminal crisis. » p 38-39
« Luxemburg argued that it was impossible for production to expand "in a society in which there are only capitalists and workers", as in Marx's model in Capital. Workers, by definition the exploited class, wouldn't have enough wages to buy the expanded amount of goods. There would be a crisis of underconsumption and the capitalists would have to look abroad to non-capitalist markets to realise their profits. In doing this they would effectively export capitalism, import cheap raw materials and increase the stability of the imperialist power at home.
So for Luxemburg imperial expansion into non-capitalist areas is necessary to capitalist accumulation, but also destroys those areas and absorbs them into capitalism. Thus, in reality, there are very real, physical limits to expansion. Once it absorbs all non-capitalist areas, capitalism must collapse into terminal crisis. » p 38-39
June 17, 2016
This three-quid booklet is an agreeable surprise: barely 4.5 inches wide and six deep and with only 59 pages, it manages to pack in an enormous amount of information about "Red Rosa", and is written in an accessible, straightforward and confident narrative by Sally Campbell, German linguist and member of the Socialist Review's editorial board.
Campbell admires Rosa as she should, as feminist, consummate organiser and activist, propagandist, public speaker, writer, fluent Marxist theoretician and a founder of Germany's Spartacists - to say nothing of Rosa's time in prison and her considerable moral and physical courage. Campbell too is very much of the Left, but it's clear there are some ideological differences, with Campbell clearly favouring Leninism.
Rosa's history reminds us that the British Labour Party is not the first to sell out to the likes of Tony Blair, to veer away from socialism to reactionary policies and to fall in step with neoliberal warmongers and militarists. It was certainly the case of Germany's SPD, formally a Marxist party, that turned to the right under the 'revisions' of Eduard Bernstein. He believed socialists could rely on the state to bring about change. Luxemburg pointed out that the state was far from neutral; it was a class state with a monopoly on violence, representing and working in the interests of the ruling class. The SPD's betrayal was a huge blow to socialists everywhere.
In 'What Is To Be Done?' Lenin argued socialists should be tightly organised and highly disciplined, injecting Marxist ideas into the Russian masses, and the party, comprising professional revolutionaries answerable to it, would lead. Luxemburg felt this centralism went too far and she emphasised that it was the working class that made revolution, even if the party did claim for itself a leadership role. Mass strikes could lead to revolution and not at the direction of a party elite, but through the revolutionary instincts of the shop floor. Rosa had immense faith in the powers of the workers' self-organisation and self-emancipation and, though the author fails to mention it, powers that are important aspects of anarchism and libertarian socialism generally.
In 1918, Rosa criticised Russia's lack of democracy. At the heart of it, Campbell says, was Rosa's belief in the self-emancipation of the working class. Campbell goes on to say that for the Bolsheviks the soviets were the highest form of democracy.
Really? Is that why Lenin seized control of the soviets, imposed his 'dictatorship of the proletariat', and rubbed out the democratic, participatory nature of these grassroots organisations, in which libertarian socialists and anarchists had played such a big role? Some might go so far as to say that Lenin stole the revolution, then destroyed it.
Born in 1871 in southern Poland, Rosa was Jewish, living under Tsarist rule. By the time she was in her early 20s she was at the forefront of Polish socialism. She wrote, spoke, led, argued, organised, founded newspapers and finally, in 1919 in Berlin, she was murdered by Freikorps thugs.
Campbell's final paragraph, in part: 'Ours is a world Luxemburg would recognise: whole regions ravaged by imperialist war, deep pools of poverty in the global south, the working-class being asked to pay for a crisis endemic to capitalism and reformist parties who only want to preserve the system...The power of Rosa Luxemburg's writings and the example of her life burn as brightly today as they did a century ago.'
One can only hope so.
Campbell admires Rosa as she should, as feminist, consummate organiser and activist, propagandist, public speaker, writer, fluent Marxist theoretician and a founder of Germany's Spartacists - to say nothing of Rosa's time in prison and her considerable moral and physical courage. Campbell too is very much of the Left, but it's clear there are some ideological differences, with Campbell clearly favouring Leninism.
Rosa's history reminds us that the British Labour Party is not the first to sell out to the likes of Tony Blair, to veer away from socialism to reactionary policies and to fall in step with neoliberal warmongers and militarists. It was certainly the case of Germany's SPD, formally a Marxist party, that turned to the right under the 'revisions' of Eduard Bernstein. He believed socialists could rely on the state to bring about change. Luxemburg pointed out that the state was far from neutral; it was a class state with a monopoly on violence, representing and working in the interests of the ruling class. The SPD's betrayal was a huge blow to socialists everywhere.
In 'What Is To Be Done?' Lenin argued socialists should be tightly organised and highly disciplined, injecting Marxist ideas into the Russian masses, and the party, comprising professional revolutionaries answerable to it, would lead. Luxemburg felt this centralism went too far and she emphasised that it was the working class that made revolution, even if the party did claim for itself a leadership role. Mass strikes could lead to revolution and not at the direction of a party elite, but through the revolutionary instincts of the shop floor. Rosa had immense faith in the powers of the workers' self-organisation and self-emancipation and, though the author fails to mention it, powers that are important aspects of anarchism and libertarian socialism generally.
In 1918, Rosa criticised Russia's lack of democracy. At the heart of it, Campbell says, was Rosa's belief in the self-emancipation of the working class. Campbell goes on to say that for the Bolsheviks the soviets were the highest form of democracy.
Really? Is that why Lenin seized control of the soviets, imposed his 'dictatorship of the proletariat', and rubbed out the democratic, participatory nature of these grassroots organisations, in which libertarian socialists and anarchists had played such a big role? Some might go so far as to say that Lenin stole the revolution, then destroyed it.
Born in 1871 in southern Poland, Rosa was Jewish, living under Tsarist rule. By the time she was in her early 20s she was at the forefront of Polish socialism. She wrote, spoke, led, argued, organised, founded newspapers and finally, in 1919 in Berlin, she was murdered by Freikorps thugs.
Campbell's final paragraph, in part: 'Ours is a world Luxemburg would recognise: whole regions ravaged by imperialist war, deep pools of poverty in the global south, the working-class being asked to pay for a crisis endemic to capitalism and reformist parties who only want to preserve the system...The power of Rosa Luxemburg's writings and the example of her life burn as brightly today as they did a century ago.'
One can only hope so.
November 23, 2011
The author of this book deserves congratulations for fitting so much into so few pages. The book never reads as superficial, though I wished it was longer. The section on Luxemburg's pamphlet The Mass Strike will, I hope, encourage many more people to read this important work themselves. Similarly I hope that people might go on to read her Junius Pamphlet, one of the most powerful polemics against war and imperialism I've ever read.
My complete review: http://t.co/x3smf4Nw
My complete review: http://t.co/x3smf4Nw
December 8, 2018
A very good overview. There is a lot of focus on Rosa Luxemburg’s life in the first half, but also how that informed her politics. It’s not very long; if you’re interested, it’s definitely worth a read.
June 4, 2018
Informative (I don’t read much political philosophy) about her life and work. Positive but not uncritical.
November 18, 2025
A brief history of her life and her work. What an icon she is.
July 23, 2013
Polish-born Marxist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg (1871 - 1919), is one of those thinkers that many far left groups are eager to claim as an inspiration. Nevertheless, few claim to be 'Luxemburgist'. Sally Campbell is (or was) a member of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers' Party. Here she gives a good introduction to Red Rosa's life, activism and theoretical work, whilst putting her own Trot gloss on the evaluations. Worth reading, but be careful to retain your critical faculties!
May 28, 2013
Picked this up in Bookmarks in London. Had never really heard of Rosa Luxemburg before and this boom does an incredible job of making clear what a remarkable person and astute thinker she was. I look forward to reading more about her.
February 24, 2021
She was right: social democracy just supports the capitalist system, and it's that system that reigns and destroys. But knowing what we know now: who wants a communist revolution?
May 14, 2023
Very good introductory book, short chapters which summarise the information well, and good explanations to accompany the writing, making it more coherent for beginners.
April 20, 2015
Good introduction, has wet my appetite for further reading.
August 29, 2018
A great short summary of an inspirational woman
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews