Written: July 1918 (in Breslau Prison). First Published: Vladimir Korolenko’s autobiographical novel A History of My Contemporary (pages 11-53). Berlin, 1919. Luxemburg had translated this work from the Russian into German, and wrote the following text as an introduction. Source: International Socialist Review, Vol.30 No.1, January-February 1969, pp.11-31. Translated: from the German by Frieda Mattick in New Essays: A Quarterly Devoted to the Study of Modern Society, Winter 1943. Transcription/Markup: Einde O’Callaghan, Daniel Gaido, & Brian Baggins Public Domain: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2005. This work is completely free.
I
“My soul, of a threefold nationality, has at last found a home –... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: After the volanic eruption in May 1902 at the port of St. Pierre.
First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, May 15, 1902.
Translated: David Wolff, News & Letters, Jan.-Feb. 1983.
Online Version: mea 1996; marxists.org 1999.
Transcribed: Dave Hollis/Brian Baggins.
Mountains of smoking ruins, heaps of mangled corpses,
a steaming, smoking sea of fire wherever you turn, mud and ashes – that
is all that remains of the flourishing little city which perched on the
rocky slope of the volcano like a fluttering swallow. For some time the
angry giant had been heard to rumble and rage against this human presumption,
the blind self-conceit of the two-legged dwarfs. Great-hearted even in
his wrath, a true giant, he w... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: 1903 First Published: Vorwärts (Berlin), No.64, 14 March 1903, Karl Marx. Translated: Christian Fuchs Transcription/Markup: Joonas Laine Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.
»The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it».
(Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach)
Twenty years ago, Marx laid his towering head to rest. And although we only experienced a couple of years ago what in the language of German professors is called 'the crisis of Marxism', it suffices to throw a glance at the masses that today follow socialism alone in Germany and at socialism's importance in all so-called civilized countries, in order to grasp the immensity of the work of Marx's... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: August 1911 in Leipzig. Source: Rosa Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol.3. Publisher: Dietz, Berlin 1973, 4th edition. First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, No.199, 29th August 1911. Translated: Dave Hollis. Online Version: mea 1994; marxists.org 1999. Transcription: Dave Hollis/Brian Baggins.
Introduction
This is one of many articles that Rosa Luxemburg wrote on and around the question of the ‘Agadir incident’.
This incident was sparked off by Germany’s attempt to spread her influence over the whole of Morocco. In view of the possibilities of a war breaking out on this issue, the French Socialists took this incident as grounds for wanting an international demonstration for Socialism. The French requ... (From: Marxists.org.) The first revision of the question of the mass strike which results from the experience of Russia relates to the general conception of the problem. Till the present time the zealous advocates of an “attempt with the mass strike” in Germany of the stamp of Bernstein, Eisner, etc., and also the strongest opponents of such an attempt as represented in the trade-union camp by, for example, Bombelburg, stand when all is said and done, on the same conception, and that is the anarchist one. The apparent polar opposites do not mutually exclude each other but, as always, condition, and at the same time, supplement each other. For the anarchist mode of thought is direct speculation on the “great Kladderadatsch,“ on the social ... (From: Marxists.org.) (1899)
[Extract]
First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, February 20th-26th, 1899 Abstract: Only Sections 1-3 are published. Sections 4-5 are omitted (please help us get this online!), containing Schippel’s analysis of militarism as a mechanism for releasing the economic pressures of capitalism. 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 Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
I
This is not the first time, and hopefully not the last, that critical voices concerning particular poi... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Die Rote Fahne, November 20th, 1918. Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker, pp.262-5. 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.
All the way from the Deutsche Tageszeitung, Die Vossische and Vorwärts to the independent Freiheit, from Reventlow, Erzberger and Scheidemann to Haase and Kautsky, comes a unanimous call for a national assembly. And at the same time there is a unanimous cry of fear at the idea of th... (From: Marxists.org.) We must turn next to another proposed form of the solution of the nationality question, i.e., federation. Federalism has long been the favorite idea of revolutionaries of anarchic hue. During the 1848 revolution Bakunin wrote in his manifesto: ”The revolution proclaimed by its own power the dissolution of despotic states, the dissolution of the Prussian state ... Austria ... Turkey ... the dissolution of the last stronghold of the despots, the Russian state ... and as a final goal – a universal federation of European Republics.” From then on, federation has remained an ideal settlement of any nationality difficulties in the programs of socialist parties of a more or less utopian, petit bourgeois character; that is, parties... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Dortmunder Arbeiterzeitung, March 14th-15th, 1910. 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.
The question of the right to vote in Prussia, which has remained in a condition of immutability for more than half a century, is today the focus of Germany’s public life. A few weeks of energetic mass action by the proletariat have sufficed to stir up the old swamp of Prussian ... (From: Marxists.org.) Published: The Class Struggle, Vol III. No. 4, August, 1919. Online Version: Sally Ryan for marxists.org August, 200.2 Editorial Note: This article which appeared in the Red Flag of Berlin, the organ of the Spartacists of Germany, on the 18th of November, 1918, shows not only the fearless energy, but also the boundless goodness of heart of a great woman. Its contents may serve, moreover, as a fit weapon against the slanders with which unscrupulous opponents have tried to besmirch the memory of Rosa Luxemburg.
For the political victims of the old regime of reaction we ask neither “amnesty” nor mercy. We demand the right of freedom, fight and revolution for those hundreds of true and faithful men and women who are languishing ... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Spartacus, No.5, May 1917. 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.
The outbreak of the Russian Revolution has broken the stalemate in the historical situation created by the continuation of the world war and the simultaneous failure of the proletarian class struggle. For three years Europe has been like a musty room, almost suffocating those living in it. Now all at once a... (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. 363–365. Source: Rosa Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. II, pp. 259–263. Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
This speech was delivered by Rosa Luxemburg at the SPD’s Party Congress that took place in Nuremburg from 13 September to 19 September 1908. This congress took place in a context where the SPD parliamentarians in Baden had voted for their state budget, against the existing policy of SPD which was to always oppose state budgets. This controversy would later come to a head in 1910, when the Bade... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: September 1898. Source: Sachsische Arbeiterzeitung, September 30, 1898. Transcription/Markup: Dario Romeo and Brian Baggins. Online Version: Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
Comrade Heine, as is well known, has written a pamphlet for the party conference entitled To Vote or Not to Vote? In it he comes out in favor of our participating in Prussian Landtag elections. It is not the main subject of his pamphlet that leads us to make a few necessary remarks, but rather the two terms which he mentions in his line of argument, and to which we react with particular sensitivity in consequence of the well-known events that have taken place recently in the party. The terms are: the art of the possible and opportunism. ... (From: Marxists.org.) Spoken: September 14, 1908. Source: German: Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, II (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1951), pp. 311–14; English: Selected Political Writings Rosa Luxemburg, 1971, edited by Dick Howard. Translated: (from the German) John Heckman. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins. Proofread: Einde OᰱCallaghan (May 2016). Copyright: Monthly Review Press © 1971. Printed with the permission of Monthly Review. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
If I take the floor, it is not to protest against the criticisms of the Party School, but on the contrary, to complain about the lark of a serious objective critique. The Party School is a new and very important institution, which must be seriously c... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Leipziger Volkzeitung, May 6 and 8, 1911. Source: This work was reprinted in a shorter form in Die Internationale, January 1926. A translation of the latter piece was made in The Labor Monthly, July 1926, pp.421-428, from which this version is taken. We earnestly would like to print the full copy, instead of this abstract version, which is the best we’ve been able to find hitherto. Translated: (from the German) ? Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins. Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
WHAT is our task in the question of peace? It does not consist merely in vigorously demonstrating at all times the love of peace of the Social Democrats; but first and foremost our task is to make c... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: The book to which this essay was the Foreword was published in Polish in Krakow in 1905. In addition to the Foreword, it contained several other articles by Rosa Luxemburg, and reprints of articles by Karl Kautsky, Franz Mehring, and “Parvus” (A. Helphand). Source: The National Question – Selected Writings by Rosa Luxemburg, edited and introduced by the late Horace B. Davis, Monthly Review Press, 1976. Translated: Original in Polish, translated to German, this version from the German to English. We realize this is not at all a desirable situation, and copyright free translations direct from the Polish would be highly prefered. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins Public Domain: You can freely c... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: July 1896. This article appeared simultaneously in Sprawa Robotnicza, no.25, July 1896, and in the Italian publication, Critica Sociale, no.14, July 1896, where it was published in translation to Italian. Source: The National Question – Selected Writings by Rosa Luxemburg, edited and introduced by the late Horace B Davis, Monthly Review Press, 1976. Translated: Jurgen Hentze, Rosa Luxemburg: Iuternationalismus und Klassenkampf (Luchterhand: 1971), pp.142-52. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins Proofed: by Matthew Grant Public Domain: You can freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the source above as well as the Marxists Intern... (From: Marxists.org.) First Spoken: July 22, 1913 to the Fourth Berlin constituency. First Published: Vorwärts, July 24, 1913. 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.
In Germany, the problem of the political mass strike was earlier discussed under the mighty pressure of the great Russian Revolution of 1905, a revolution in which the application of the mass strike brought both defeat and victory to the Russ... (From: Marxists.org.) (6 July 1899)
Originally published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, 6 July 1899. German Version: Rosa Luxemburg, Eine taktische Frage, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 1.1, S. 483–486. French Version: Une question de tactique. Translation from French: Adam Buick. Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
The entry of Millerand into the Waldeck-Rousseau cabinet merits study from the point of view of tactics and principles by foreign as well as French socialists. The active participation of socialists in a bourgeois government is, in any event, a phenomenon that goes beyond the framework of the usual activity of socialism. Is it a question of a form of activity that is as justified and opportune for the proletariat... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: 1915. Source: Die Internationale, No. 1, 1915. Transcription/Markup: Dario Romeo and Brian Baggins. Online Version: Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
On August 4th, 1914, German Social Democracy abdicated politically, and at the same time the Socialist International collapsed. All attempts at denying or concealing this fact, regardless of the motives on which they are based, tend objectively to perpetuate, and to justify, the disastrous self-deception of the socialist parties, the inner malady of the movement, that led to the collapse, and in the long run to make the Socialist International a fiction, a hypocrisy.
To collapse itself is without precedent in the history of all times. Socialism or Imperialis... (From: Marxists.org.) Bernstein rejects the “theory of collapse” as an historic road toward socialism. Now what is the way to a socialist society that is proposed by his “theory of adaptation to capitalism”? Bernstein answers this question only by allusion. Konrad Schmidt, however, attempts to deal with this detail in the manner of Bernstein. According to him, “the trade union struggle for hours and wages and the political struggle for reforms will lead to a progressively more extensive control over the conditions of production,” and “as the rights of the capitalist proprietor will be diminished through legislation, he will be reduced in time to the role of a simple administrator.” “The capitalist will see hi... (From: Marxists.org.) First translation of “Революционное похмелье”, Proletary, No. 44, 8 (21) April 1909, pp. 3–6.
Article in Russian: https://www.mediafire.com/?o8uomwjvb70svbs.
Translated by Noa Rodman.
Copied with thanks from the Libcom.org Website.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Lenin wrote in a letter to Luxemburg: ‘Your article against the otzovists and ultimatumists has pleased everyone very much.’ At the conference of the extended editorial board of Proletary, Zinoviev mentioned her article: ‘And in fact the performance of the otzovist... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: January/February 1905. First Published: February 8, 1905 Source: Zeitschrift fòr die Interessen der Arbeiterinnen, no.3, February 8th, 1905. Transcription/Markup: Dario Romeo and Brian Baggins. Online Version: Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
On January 22nd in Petersburg [January 9th according to the Russian used Julian calender], the first mass revolutionary rising of the Russian proletariat against absolutism was put down ‘victoriously’ by the terrorist government, that is, it was drowned in the blood of thousands of defenseless workers, in the blood of the murdered men, women and children of the people [Bloody Sunday]. It is possible that – at least in Petersburg itself – a... (From: Marxists.org.) Spoken: December 1906. First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung of 13 December 1906. Source: Socialist Standard of January 1907 (abridged). Transcription/Markup: Adam Buick/B. Baggins. Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
On the twelfth of last month Rosa Luxemburg was tried at the Criminal Court at Weimar for “inciting to the use of physical force” by the speech she contributed to the discussion on the General Strike at the annual Congress of the German Socialist Party held in 1905 at Jena.
The court was densely crowded. Besides a great number of Socialists the audience included a good ... (From: Marxists.org.) A problem which is of great importance in every revolution is that of the struggle with the Lumpenproletariat. We in Germany too, as everywhere else, will have this problem to reckon with. The Lumpenproletariat element is deeply embedded in bourgeois society. It is not merely a special section, a sort of social wastage which grows enormously when the walls of the social order are falling down, but rather an integral part of the social whole. Events in Germany – and more or less in other countries – have shown how easily all sections of bourgeois society are subject to such degeneration. The gradations between commercial profiteering, fictitious deals, adulteration of foodstuffs, cheating, official embezzlement, theft, burglary a... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: September 1918. Source: Spartacus, No. 11, 1918. Transcription/Markup: Dario Romeo and Brian Baggins. Online Version: Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
Since the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Russian Revolution has entered into a very difficult phase. The policy which has guided the Bolsheviks’ action is obvious: peace at any price in order to gain a respite, during which they can expand and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, and realize as many socialist reforms as possible. They plan in this way to await the outbreak of the international proletariat revolution and at the same time to expedite it by the Russian example. Since the utter war-weariness of the Russian masses and the ... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: June 1904. Source: Sächsische Arbeiterzeitung, June 5-6, 1904. Transcription/Markup: Dario Romeo and Brian Baggins. Online Version: Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
Once again the Reichstag has convened under very characteristic circumstances. On the one hand there are renewed and brazed attacks by the reactionary press – of the caliber of the Post – against the universal franchise, and on the other, clear signs of a ‘parliamentary weariness’ in the bourgeois circles themselves; together with this, there is the government’s evident intention to defer the convocation of the Reichstag until shortly before the Christmas holiday – all this presents a crass picture of a ra... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: October 8, 9, 10, 1896 in the Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung, the German Social Democratic paper in Dresden. Source: The Balkan Socialist Tradition in Revolutionary History, Vol.8 no.3, 2003. Translated: (from the German) by Ian Birchall. Transcription/Markup: Edward Crawford/Brian Baggins. Proofed: by Matthew Grant. 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 Turkish Situation
IN the party press, we all too often encounter the attempt to represent the events in Turkey as a pure product of the play of diplomatic intrigue, especially on the Russian side.[A] For a time, you could e... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: 1905. First Published: by the Polish Social Democratic Party in 1905. Source: A Russian edition appeared in Moscow in 1920. A French edition was issued by the French Socialist Party in 1937. First English Edition published by Socialist Review, Birmingham. The text here is reproduced from the 1979 Colombo edition. Copyright free status is verified by a 1972 publication of the same translation, by Merlin Press, without Copyright notice. Translated: from the French by Juan Punto. Transcription/Markup: Youth for International Socialism/Brian Baggins. Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2003. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.
Part One
... (From: Marxists.org.) If the existence of the republic had depended upon the Waldeck-Rousseau cabinet, it would have perished long ago. The buffoonery of the monarchist insurrection was matched by the buffoonery of the republican defense.
Seldom has a government taken the helm in a more serious moment and seldom has a government had greater hopes placed in it. It is time that the monarchist danger was more of a specter than a reality. The really serious possibility, however, was that the guerrilla war with the monarchist elements would reveal to the insubordinate army chiefs and mutiny-preaching clergy the impotence of the Republic and, thereby, make repetitions of similar crises inevitable in the future.
The eyes of the civilized world were turned to Fran... (From: Marxists.org.)