The Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg

by Norman Geras

An important contribution to our understanding of twentieth-century Marxism

During the first decades of the twentieth century, Rosa Luxemburg was the leader of the workers’ movement in Poland and Germany. She made a remarkable contribution to socialist theory and practice, yet her legacy remains in dispute. In this book Norman Geras interrogates and refutes the myths that have developed around her work. She was an opponent of socialist participation in the First World War and, as Geras shows, her views on socialist strategy in Russia were closer to Lenin’s than any other leader’s. Geras explores the development of Luxemburg’s critique in the period following the war and demonstrates how her thought is distinct from the social democratic or anarchist theories into which it is often subsumed. Geras brings new light to bear on one of the most misrepresented figures in radical history, illustrating her inspiring lack of complacency and her commitment to questioning those in authority on both the Right and the Left.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Philosophy, Politics, Theory, Biography

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Norman Geras was Professor Emeritus of Government at the University of Manchester. In a long academic career, he has contributed substantially to the analysis of the works of Karl Marx, particularly in his book Marx and Human Nature and the article "The Controversy About Marx and Justice," which remains a standard work on the issue.

Reviews

[Liam89 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Few Marxist philosophers and thinkers have been analysed and discussed as much as Rosa Luxemburg, and this has often been in a hostile or dishonest way. Some falsely condemned her as a believer in spontaneity and of the almost teleological inevitability of socialism. Others have tried to subsume her writings into those of liberalism with her assertion of the importance of democracy and freedom of speech. The late Professor Geras does her legacy a great service by dispelling both of these myths, and using close textual analysis and comparison with other revolutionaries such as Trotsky and Lenin, shows that she was a dedicated Marxist revolutionary whose critiques of capitalism were combined with an unfailing belief that only through constant agitation and rigorous self-education could the masses seize political and economic power following the economic collapse that she believed was inevitable. However, she knew that within a genuinely democratic and socialist society, based on the Marxist principe of self-realisation and expression, a recourse to police-state tactics, of repression, of death-squads and censorship and authoritarianism, would lead to the decay and death of that society. Had she not been so brutally murdered in 1919 by the fascists she had spent her political life fighting, she would have lived to have seen that she was more right than she knew.

[Titus Hjelm · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly easy read despite the fact that most of it is advanced commentary on later interpretations of Luxemburg, meaning that I would have gotten more out of it had I read more of her work before this book. Written from a Trotsky-sympathetic perspective, this is also an interesting document of the discussions within British Marxism in the 1970s.

[伞 擎杨 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good work refuting Lukács!