Rosa Luxemburg

Date

1871–1919

Description

City of birth: Zamose
Country of birth: Poland
Field of activity: Politics — activism, socialism, philosophy

More detail coming ...

Quotes

‘Franz Mehring, the biographer of Marx, did not exaggerate when he called Rosa Luxemburg the best brain after Marx. But she did not contribute her brain alone to the working-class movement; she gave everything she had — her heart, her passion, her strong will, her very life. … Deep human sympathy and an earnest desire for truth, unbounded courage and a magnificent brain united in Rosa Luxemburg to make her a great revolutionary socialist. As her closest friend, Clara Zetkin, wrote in her obituary: “In Rosa Luxemburg the socialist idea was a dominating and powerful passion of both heart and brain, a truly creative passion which burned ceaselessly. The great task and the overpowering ambition of this astonishing woman was to prepare the way for social revolution, to clear the path of history for Socialism. To experience the revolution, to fight its battles — that was the highest happiness for her. With a will, determination, selflessness and devotion for which words are too weak, she consecrated her whole life and her whole being to Socialism. She gave herself completely to the cause of Socialism, not only in her tragic death, but throughout her whole life, daily and hourly, through the struggles of many years ... She was the sharp sword, the living flame of revolution.” ’

Author

Tony Cliff

Speaker

Tony Cliff

Title of the publication

‘Introduction’ to Rosa Luxemburg, Ideas in Action (1972) by Paul Frölich

Other contributors

Clara Zetkin

Publisher (or journal name with vol. and number)

Pluto Press

City of publication

London

Country of publication (modern nation-state equivalent)

United Kingdom

Publication date

1972

Location [pp. or web]

p. ix

Other location

https://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1969/rosalux/9-history.htm

Original language

English

Genre

Book

Context

Paul Frölich’s biography Rosa Luxemburg. Gedanke und Tat was first published in 1939 by Éditions Nouvelles Internationales, the publisher in exile of the Internationaler Sozialistischer Kampfbund (International Socialist Militant League). In 1940, Victor Gollancz commissioned a translation of the work and published the biography in London in his series Left Book Club Edition. Tony Cliff (1917–2000), born Yigael Gluckstein, was a Trotskyist activist. He moved from what is now Israel to Britain in 1947. A founding member of the Socialist Review Group, which became the International Socialists and then the Socialist Workers Party, Cliff has written extensively on Rosa Luxemburg. Clara Zetkin (1857–1933), a close friend and confidante of Rosa Luxemburg, was a German Marxist theorist, activist and advocate for women’s rights.