Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg (March 5, 1870 or 1871 - January 15, 1919, in Polish language Ró?a Luksemburg) was a Polish-born German Marxist political theorist, socialist philosopher, and revolutionary. She was a social democratic theorist of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, and later the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. She started the newspaper The Red Flag, and cofounded the Spartakusbund, a Marxist revolutionary group that became the Communist Party of Germany and took part in an unsuccessful revolution in Berlin in January, 1919. The uprising was carried out against Rosa's advice, and crushed by the remnants of the monarchist army and freelance right-wing militias collectively called the Freikorps, which were sent in by the government. Luxemburg and hundreds of others were captured, tortured, and killed.

Last words: belief in the revolution

Rosa Luxemburg's last known words, written on the evening of her murder, were about her belief in the masses, and in the inevitability of revolution:

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"The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be recreated from the masses and out of the masses. The masses are the decisive element, they are the rock on which the final victory of the revolution will be built. The masses were on the heights; they have developed this 'defeat' into one of the historical defeats which are the pride and strength of international socialism. And that is why the future victory will bloom from this 'defeat'.

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'Order reigns in Berlin!' You stupid henchmen! Your 'order' is built on sand. Tomorrow the revolution will already 'raise itself with a rattle' and announce with fanfare, to your terror:

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I was, I am, I will be!"

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(Order reigns in Berlin, Collected Works 4, p. 536)

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