Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg ( ; ; ; born Rozalia Luksenburg; 5 March 1871 – 15 January 1919) was a Polish and naturalised-German Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist, and revolutionary socialist. A member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), she became a leading theorist of the SPD and a prominent figure in the Second International. An anti-imperialist, anti-militarist, and foremost thinker of democracy within the Marxist tradition, she is best known for her major theoretical work, ''The Accumulation of Capital'' (1913), and for her revolutionary leadership of the Spartacus League during the German Revolution of 1918–1919.

Born in Russian-ruled Poland to a Jewish family, Luxemburg became a German citizen in 1898 through a marriage of convenience. Together with her partner Leo Jogiches, she co-founded the SDKPiL, a party that rejected Polish nationalism and argued that Polish independence could only be achieved through a socialist revolution in Germany, Austria, and Russia. In Germany, she became the foremost leader of the SPD's revolutionary wing, defining the Marxist position on reform in her pamphlet ''Social Reform or Revolution?'' (1900) against the theories of Eduard Bernstein. Drawing lessons from the 1905 Russian Revolution, she developed a theory of the mass strike as the proletariat's most important revolutionary tool, which brought her into increasing conflict with the SPD's cautious leadership.

Her outspoken opposition to World War I led her to co-found the anti-war Spartacus League, and she was imprisoned for most of the war. From prison, she wrote the influential ''Junius Pamphlet'' (1915), condemning the war and the SPD's capitulation to nationalism. She celebrated the Russian Revolution, but in a posthumously published manuscript she sharply criticised the authoritarian policies of the Bolsheviks, championing democratic freedoms and famously stating, "Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently."

After her release during the German Revolution, Luxemburg co-founded the KPD and was a central figure in the January 1919 Spartacist uprising in Berlin. When the revolt was crushed by the Freikorps, a government-sponsored paramilitary group, Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, and other supporters were captured and summarily executed. After her death, her legacy became a subject of intense debate. She has been revered by many on the left as a martyr for the revolution, while her theories, particularly her emphasis on spontaneity and democracy, were sharply criticized by the Leninist and Stalinist traditions of orthodox communism. Provided by Wikipedia