Who Was Rosa Luxemburg?

Who Was Rosa Luxemburg?

Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung (2019)

Film Review

The filmmakers describe Luxemburg as one of the most important thinkers of the 20^th century. One of her most important contributions was to explaining why imperialism (ie colonialism) is an essential component of a capitalist economic system.

Born to a Jewish family in 1871 when Poland was part of Russia, she was forced to flee her native country as a teenager owing to her socialist beliefs and activities.

After receiving a doctorate in economics in Germany, she joined the German Social Democratic Party (SDP). She opposed the gradual adoption of socialism through electoral politics advocated by the SPD. She believed change had to come from below (from the people) and that this required ongoing self-education and class consciousness. She believed socialism imposed from the top (Bolshevism) could never work. At the same time she advocated for liberal democracy (as opposed to monarchy) because it made it easier to organize for democratic rights.

She was also at odds with Germany’s upper class feminists who (in her view) only wanted the advantages of like rich men. She believed that fighting for economic democracy would bring about women’s rights automatically. On a personal level she battled rampant sexism from male SDP members.

Following the outbreak of World War I she and Karl Liebknecht left left the SPD, which called for abandoning class to support the war effort. Together with Franz Mehring, they formed the Spartacus League. With the latter at the forefront of the German peace movement, this landed the three of them in jail.

In the final year of World War I, the German economy began crumbling, leading to a series of mass strikes for peace, as well as mutinies by German sailors and soldiers. On November 8, 1918, a full blown popular uprising forced the Kaiser to abdicate and Germany was declared a republic.

As the SDP took a leading role in guiding the formation of Germany’s first democratic government, Luxemburg was released from prison. After protestors seized Berlin’s main newspaper office, she helped put out a daily newspaper urging protestors to remain in the streets to ensure their full representation in the new democratic government.

The SDP, in turn, allied itself with right wing paramilitaries who assassinated Luxemburg and Liebknecht and systematically destroyed the proletarian movement responsible for Germany’s mass protests. These right wing militias would go on to found the Nazi party. The systematic destruction of the war time proletarian movements meant there was no one to oppose Hitler’s 1934 seizure of power.