Source: Le Socialisme, March 15, 1908, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Marx’s death. Translated: from the French for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor.
It is generally only after their death that the scientific value of most great thinkers is fully recognized. Time gives them their full importance.
But there is a very particular reason why, as the day on which we lost the author retreats further into the past, Marxist theory increasingly penetrates social strata and finds new partisans.
Marxist theory is nothing but the scientific reflex of the class struggle engendered by capitalism with the inevitability of a law of nature.
The continuous extension and the growing strength of this theory are consequences of the la... (From: Marxists.org.) Just consider: it is a fact that the controversies in political economy over the problem of accumulation and the possibility of the realization of surplus value have gone on for a century; in the twenties, in Sismondi’s disputes with Say, Ricardo and MacCulloch,[1] in the eighties and nineties between the Russian ‘Populists’[2] and Marxists. The most distinguished political economists in France, England, Germany and Russia aired the question repeatedly, both before and after the appearance of Marx’s Capital. Wherever, under the impact of sharp social criticism, active intellectual life pulsated through political economy, the problem left no peace for the researchers. It is a fact that the second volume of Capital is ... (From: Marxists.org.) So far we have taken account only of the individual capitalist in our survey of reproduction; he is its typical representative, its agent, for reproduction is indeed brought about entirely by individual capitalist enterprises. This approach has already shown us that the problem involves difficulties enough. Yet these difficulties increase to an extraordinary degree and become even more complicated, when we turn our attention from the individual capitalist to the totality of capitalists.
A superficial glance suffices to show that capitalist reproduction as a social whole must not be regarded simply as a mechanical summation of all the separate processes of individual capitalist reproduction. We have seen, for instance, that one of the fun... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Die Rote Fahne, November 27th, 1918. Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker, pp.271-4. Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
The charming little plan for a dignified, peaceable, ‘constitutional’ German revolution which preserves ‘law and order’, and which regards as its primary and most urgent task the protection of capitalist private property – this little plan is going to pot: A... (From: Marxists.org.) Source: Le Socialisme, September 9, 1911. Translated: for marxists.org for Mitch Abidor.
Dear Citizens:
In a recent issue of Socialisme (no. 194, September 2) I read in the article by Citizen Compére-Morel, The Socialists and War, the following lines:
“To be sure, we don’t dispute that the majority, the overwhelming majority of the Mannheim Congress, lined up behind Bebel, refused to take into consideration a motion of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who, in Germany, carry on a campaign like that carried on in France by Hervé in favor of the theories exposed in 1893 by the Dutchman Domela Nieuwenhuis at the International Congress of Zurich, tending to create a special anti-militarist committee wit... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: (in French) in Le Mouvement socialiste, 1 January 1903 (in response to a questionnaire). Source: The Social Democrat, August 1903. Transcription/Markup: Adam Buick/B. Baggins. Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
I. The Church under the Monarchy and under the Republic
When one speaks of an anti-clerical policy of Socialism, it is evident that it is not intended to attack religious convictions from a Socialistic point of view. The religion of the masses will only completely disappear with the society of today, when man, instead of being dominated by the social process, will dominate... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Die Rote Fahne, November 18th, 1918. Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker, pp.253-7. Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
The revolution has begun. What is called for now is not jubilation at was has been accomplished, not triumph over the beaten foe, but the strictest self-criticism and iron concentration of energy in order to continue the work we have begun. For our accomplishments are small and the foe h... (From: Marxists.org.) Originally published: in Polish in Czerwony Sztandar, No.86, June 1906. [1*] Translated: Peter Manson (from French).
This translation from Weekly Worker, No.753, 22 January 2009.
Copied with thanks from the CPGB/Weekly Worker Website. Marked up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Comrade Plekhanov has published an exhaustive article in the Courrier entitled, How far does the right go?, in which he accuses the Bolsheviks of Blanquism.
It is not incumbent upon us to defend the Russian comrades upon whom comrade Plekhanov rains the blows of his erudition and dialectic. They are perfectly capable of doing so themselves. But it is worth commenting on certain remarks which our readers too will find of int... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: Late November, 1918. First Published: Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag), November 25, 1918. Translated: (from the German) by A. Lehrer. Transcription/Markup: A. Lehrer/Brian Baggins. Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2002, 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
PROLETARIANS! Men and Women of Labor! Comrades!
The revolution in Germany has come! The masses of the soldiers who for years were driven to slaughter for the sake of capitalistic profits; the masses of workers, who for four years were exploited, crushed, and starved, have revolted. Prussian militarism, that fearful tool of oppression, that scourge of humanity – lies... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, July 24th, 1911. Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker. Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
Because of the Morocco Affair, as is well known, it has occurred to a number of our French comrades that an international socialist demonstration against the militaristic colonial adventure is called for. This would be arranged by the organ competent for such matters, the International Sociali... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: An illegal leaflet from May 1916. [1] Source: https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/luxemburg/1916/05/hundepol.htm. German original: Institute for Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the SED, Central Party Archive, D.F. V/14. Translated from German: Schummelpilz, Amadanny. Redaction, Editing and Formatting: Luka, Schummelpilz. Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Editors’ Note: As the member of the Reichstag, Liebknecht had parliamentary immunity from prosecution. When the military judicial authorities demanded that this immunity be removed for organizing an anti-war demonstration on May the 1st (which was a huge success, with 10,000 attendants and clashes with the police)... (From: Marxists.org.) Originally Written: April 30, 1913 Source: The Communist, Vol. VII, No. 5, May 1928, pp. 262-264. Publisher: Workers (Communist) Party of America Transcribed/HTML Markup: Brian Reid Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2009). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
[The May Day article printed below was written by Rosa Luxemburg for May Day, 1913, a year before the outbreak of the World War. It shows the combination of sensitiveness to coming events and concern with the methods of meeting them which is characteristic of the highest kind of revolutionary leadership. Its scornful analysis of... (From: Marxists.org.) From: Cahiers de la Quinzaine, no.11; Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor.
The socialist principle of class struggle demands the action of the proletariat wherever its interests as a class are in question. This is the case for all conflicts that divide the bourgeoisie. Every shift in the relation of social forces in bourgeois society, any change in the political relations of the country, influences, in the first place, the situation of the working class. We can’t act as indifferent witnesses to what goes on in the interior of the bourgeoisie, unless socialism could be realized outside of bourgeois society, for example through the foundation in each country of a separate colony. But since we haven’t thought of e... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Die Rote Fahne, No.3, 18 November 1918. Source: International Socialist Review, Vol.30 No.1, January-February 1969, pp.5-6. Translated: (from the French which was from the original in German) William L. McPherson in Germany After the Armistice: A Report Based on the Personal Testimony of Representative Germany, Concerning the Conditions Existing in 1919, edited by Maurice Berger. Transcription/Markup: Einde O’Callaghan, Daniel Gaido, & Brian Baggins Public Domain: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2005. This work is completely free.
This is an alternate translation of the same work by a different name A Duty of Honor, which is the correct German translation for Eine Ehrenpflicht.
We did not wish for... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Die Rote Fahne, November 18th, 1918. Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker, pp.258-61. Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
We did not want any ‘amnesty’, nor pardon, for the political prisoners who were the victims of the old order. We demanded our right to freedom, through struggle and revolution, for the hundreds of faithful and brave men and women who were languishing in prison because they h... (From: Marxists.org.) (1902)
First Published: Leipzeiger Volkszeitung, September 19, 1902.
Source: German: Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, II (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1951), pp.156-60; English: Selected Political Writings Rosa Luxemburg, 1971, edited by Dick Howard.
Translated: (from the German) Rosemarie Waldrop.
Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins.
Copyright: Monthly Review Press © 1971. Printed with the permission of Monthly Review. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
An extensive debate concerning the eight-hour day followed the report on parliamentary activity at our Party Congress last Wednesday and Thursday. It is true, it ended with the usual referral of demands to our parliamentary dele... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: April, 1916: Banned in Germany. Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected political writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker. Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.
Revelation, III 15:16
Comrades! You are all aware of the division that exists in the bosom of the intra-party op... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Source: New International, July 1942, pp.184-186. Translated: (from the German) E. Lund Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
The Reichstag elections of 1912 were viewed by the German liberal bourgeoisie as an important test of strength against the Kaiser and his landowner-militarist support. Though not able to control the executive branch of the government, the Reichstag had authority to legislate on questions of such first-rate importance to the bourgeoisie as the budget, taxes and tariffs. With the help of the Social Democracy, the... (From: Marxists.org.) German original: Protokoll der Verhandlungen des Parteitags der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands, abgehalten zu Nürnberg vom 13. bis 19. September 1908, Berlin 1908, pp. 267–269. Source: Rosa Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, pp. 256–259. Translation: Rida Vaquas. Revision: Einde O’Callaghan. Transcription & Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
At the Mannheim Congress, when the question of working together with the trade unions was unfurled in all its consequences and ways and means were sought, so that we would be able to achieve the inevitably necessary close cooperation in the interests of both branches of the workers’ movement, I was among those comra... (From: Marxists.org.) Introduction
The first three letters were first presented by Feliks Tych in the Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung, 27. Jahrgang, September 1996, No.3. The fourth and fifth letters were published in the 6th volume of Rosa Luxemburg’s Letters in German, i.e. Rosa Luxemburg, Gesammelte Briefe, Vol.6, Dietz Verlag 1993. Detailed source information follows each letter.
The first three letters were written at the same time as her article, The Russian Revolution, and can be understood as an extension of and commentary on it. The letters were written while Rosa Luxemburg was in prison in Breslau. The prison regime was such that she was able to her correspondence and articles smu... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: First published in Liepziger Volkszeitung, April 30, 1913. Published: From Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, tr. Dick Howard (NY: Monthly Review Press, 1971). Online Version: marxists.org April 2002.
In the middle of the wildest orgies of imperialism, the world holiday of the proletariat is repeating itself for the twenty-fourth time. What has taken place in the quarter of a century since the epoch-making decision to celebrate May Day is an immense part of the historical path. When the May demonstration made its debut, the vanguard of the International, the German working class, was breaking the chains of a shameful law of exception and setting out on the path of a free, legal development. The period of the long de... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: 1900. Originally published: Roza Luksemburg, W obronie narodowolci, Poznan 1900. Published in German: Rosa Luxemburg, Zur Verteidigung der Nationalität, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 1, Part 1, Berlin 1982, pp. 810–28. Translated from German: Emal Ghamsharick for the Marxists’ Internet Archive in October 2014. Marked up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive. Public Domain: This work is in the under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Marxists’ Internet Archive as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the translators, transcribers, editors, proofreade... (From: Marxists.org.) 2.5 Russia’s Economic Interests
in the Orient
Of eminent significance for the question we are dealing with, finally, is the new direction in Russian foreign economic policy that has become evident in the last ten years. Up until that time, Russia’s efforts were directed to satisfying its needs for manufactured goods and raw materials through its own production and emancipating itself from foreign imports. Today its efforts go further; today Russia wants to venture out into the world market and challenge the other capitalist nations on foreign ground. To be sure, this tendency does not stem from the Russian bourgeoisie; because of the peculiar economic-political development of Russia, politics frequently grasps the initiati... (From: Marxists.org.) (1903)
[Exstract]
First Published: (Polish) Przeglad Socialdemokratyczsy, January-February 1903.
Source: (German) Politische Schriften, III (Frankfurt: Europaische, Verlagsanstalt, 1968), pp.23-82. (English) Selected Political Writings Rosa Luxemburg, 1971, edited by Dick Howard.
Abstract: The original article contains parts 1-7. This work presents only 1-4. We earnestly hope to find someone who can translate the remaining sections of this work.
Translated: Originally written in Polish, then translated into German (by Tadeusz Kachlak, with the help of Bernherd Blanke and Victoria Vierhelles), this text was translated from the German translation into English by Tom Herbst.
Transcription/Markup: T... (From: Marxists.org.) Source: Le Socialiste, May 1-8, 1904; Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor.
May Day this year stands out particularly because it is being celebrated in the midst of the noises of war. Because of this, its character as a demonstration in favor of world peace has the upper hand this year. But more than ever, in the presence of war, the specifically proletarian demonstration must also be the expression of this idea, that the realization of universal peace cannot be conceived of except as linked to the realization of our socialist final goal.
If the Russo-Japanese War has demonstrated anything, it’s the vanity of the speculations of those “humanitarian” socialists who claim to found world peace on the system of ... (From: Marxists.org.) In spite of the military dictatorship and censorship of the press, in spite of the abdication of the Social Democrats, in spite of the fratricidal war, the class struggle rises with elemental force from out of the Burgfrieden;[1] and the international solidarity of labor from out of the bloody mists of the battlefield. Not in the weak and artificial attempts to galvanize the old International, not in pledges renewed here and there to stand together again after the war. No! Now in and from the war the fact emerges with a wholly new power and energy that the proletarians of all lands have one and the same interests. The war itself dispels the illusion it has created.
Victory or defeat? Thus sounds the slogan of the ruling militarism in all... (From: Marxists.org.) Originally written for a volume commemorating Ferdinantd Lassalle. [1*] This version: Weekly Worker, No.752, 15 January 2009. Translated: Ben Lewis.
Copied with thanks from the CPGB/Weekly Worker Website. Marked up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Lassalle’s immediate relationship with the March [1848] revolution has remained a mere fragmentary, almost fleeting, one.
This is partly because of his still relatively young age, but above all because of the peculiar concatenation of circumstances in his life which – for almost a decade – chained him to the individual fate of a woman badly abused by the dominant feudal powers and which have made his energy to the service of the revoluti... (From: Marxists.org.) First published: Die Gleichheit, No.18, 1913, pp.275-77. This translation: Weekly Worker, No.752, 15 January 2009. Translated: Ben Lewis.
Copied with thanks from the CPGB/Weekly Worker Website. Marked up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
“Hutten’s error was merely that of all prophetic natures: namely to view and desire at once a shining ideal, which humanity can only achieve step by step and bit by bit after centuries of struggle.”
With these words, David Friedrich Strauss closes his novel Hutten. And what applies to Hutten also applies to Lassalle in the same degree. Of course, centuries do not come into consideration in the speedy development of contemporary capitalist developme... (From: Marxists.org.) An unprecedented task in the history of the socialist movement has fallen to the lot of the Russian Social Democracy. It is the task of deciding on what is the best socialist tactical policy in a country where absolute monarchy is still dominant. It is a mistake to draw a rigid parallel between the present Russian situation and that which existed in Germany during the years 1879-90, when Bismarck’s antisocialist laws were in force. The two have one thing in common – police rule. Otherwise they are in no way comparable.
The obstacles offered to the socialist movement by the absence of democratic liberties are of relatively secondary importance. Even in Russia, the people’s movement has succeeded in overcoming the barrier... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: July 1916–October 1918. First Published: Letters from Prison: by Rosa Luxemberg: with a portrait and a facsimile, Young International at Schönberg in Berlin, 1921–1923. Source: An exact reproduction by the Square One pamphlets series by the Independent Labor Party in 1972, the notes and translation being the same as in the original 1923 edition. Translated: (from the German) by Eden and Cedar Paul. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford and Brian Baggins, Public Domain: Luxemburg Internet Archive 2005. This work is completely free.
These letters are personal rather than political and in 1923, all the proceeds went to the support of Liebknecht’s widow and children. A few of the letters were republished in a new... (From: Marxists.org.)