Luxemburg, Rosa (1871–1919) Polish and
German communist thinker and activist
Active in the early European MARXIST SOCIALISTrevolu-
tionary movements, Luxemburg’s ideas reflected the
radical but DEMOCRATICsocialism of her time. Like V. I.
LENIN, she insisted that a violent workers’ revolution
would be necessary to overthrow CAPITALISMand the
“bourgeois” government (rather than the gradual,
peaceful, parliamentary methods of SOCIAL DEMOCRAT
Karl KAUTSKY), but she envisioned considerable debate,
democracy, and flexibility with that “DICTATORSHIPof
the proletariat,” or COMMUNISTstate. In this way, she
was critical of the DESPOTICand TOTALITARIANqualities
of the Russian (Soviet) communist revolution and BOL-
SHEVIKstate. She wanted the working class itself to
accomplish the revolution and socialist regime, rather
than a “vanguard” Communist Party of the Leninist
(democratic-centralism) type. Revolutionary politics
was to be the “school” of workers’ democracy, with
much learning through experiments, mistakes, and
change. “Revolution,” she wrote, “is the sole form of
‘war’... in which the final victory can be prepared
only by a series of ‘defeats’.”
Born into a middle-class Polish Jewish family, Lux-
emburg spent most of her adulthood in Germany and
LEFTISTpolitics. She was assassinated during the 1918
German revolution.
Further Readings
Dunayevskaya, Raya. Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation, and
Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution,foreword by Adrienne Rich,
2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Luxemburg, Rosa. The Crisis in the German Social-Democracy.
New York: H. Fertig, 1969.
Nettl, J. P. Rosa Luxemburg,abridged ed. New York: Schocken
Books, 1969.
Tyrmand, Leopold. The Rosa Luxemburg Contraceptives Coopera-
tive; A Primer on Communist Civilization. New York:
Macmillan, 1971.192 Luxemburg, Rosa
Rosa Luxemburg, ca. 1900.(LIBRARYOFCONGRESS)