Happy Birthday, Rosa Luxemburg!

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

"Tomorrow the revolution will already 'raise itself with a rattle' and announce with fanfare, to your terror: I was, I am, I shall be!" - Rosa Luxemburg, born on this day in 1871

[Comrade #138672]

I'm reading The Accumulation of Capital at the moment. It's a shame that she had to die so soon.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

My birthday isn't until October actually.

[Let's Get Free]

Happy birthday comrade. She gave herself to the cause not just in her death, but daily and hourly in the work and the struggle of many years.

[Red Enemy]

Happy birthday to the most important Marxist of Germany since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels!

[Romanophile]

Happy birthday to the most important Marxist of Germany since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels!

She wa’n’t a Luxemburgist ?

[Red Enemy]

She wa’n’t a Luxemburgist ?
The designation of "Luxemburgist" is one of historical agreement, as opposed to an actual tendency. However, she was a Marxist, and Luxemburgists are Marxists.

[l'Enfermé]

Happy birthday to the most important Marxist of Germany since Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels!
How do you figure that? The real "importance" of Marx/Engels is the influence their thought and practical activity had on the proletarian socialist movement. In this regard, as a practical revolutionary, she is overshadowed by contemporaries like K. Liebknecht or Leviné, or those that came before her but after Marx/Engels, like Bebel and W. Liebknecht. As a Marxist theorist, she had very little influence on the movement compared to most of her contemporary German Marxist theorists. And I'm not talking just about Kautsky(like you've guessed), but also about major "Marxist" theorists during the inter-war revolutionary period. The left-coms/Councilists, like Rühle and Pannekoek were much more "important" than Luxemburg. Even Thalheimer was more "important" than her as a theorist. She left literally no theoretical legacy. The KPD was immediately Bolshevised, the ultra-lefts had their own shit going on and the Social-Democrats drifted even more to the right.


She wa’n’t a Luxemburgist ?
"Luxemburgism" is not and never has been an actual ideology or tendency in any meaningful sense.

[Red Enemy]

How do you figure that? The real "importance" of Marx/Engels is the influence their thought and practical activity had on the proletarian socialist movement.Yes, and luckily, they didn't have the likes of the parliamentary cretins and theoreticians of the swamp like Kautsky in their way ;).


In this regard, as a practical revolutionary, she is overshadowed by contemporaries like K. Liebknecht or Leviné, or those that came before her but after Marx/Engels, like Bebel and W. Liebknecht.Why is that? Why are you gauging by influence, because you could easily say Ebert and Scheidemann were more important by your standards.


As a Marxist theorist, she had very little influence on the movement compared to most of her contemporary German Marxist theorists.Yes, like Kautsky, who lead the German proletariat into reformism and parliamentary cretinism.


And I'm not talking just about Kautsky(like you've guessed), but also about major "Marxist" theorists during the inter-war revolutionary period. The left-coms/Councilists, like Rühle and Pannekoek were much more "important" than Luxemburg.Why is it... could it be because they didn't die in the first month of 1919? Had time to develop theories after seeing the Russian experiment? Her own politics developed towards more of a 1918/1919 Bolshevik leftism, perhaps similar to Gavril Myasnikov.

You've read the mass strike, right? That bit you and your comrades claim is a theory of spontaneity?


Even Thalheimer was more "important" than her as a theorist. She left literally no theoretical legacy. The KPD was immediately Bolshevised, the ultra-lefts had their own shit going on and the Social-Democrats drifted even more to the right.Your point? You continue to gauge the importance of all these men on shallow grounds.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Dear l'Enfermé,
More people have read Luxembourg than the other folk you mention combined. Reform or Revolution is a classic, as is Organizational Questions
of the Russian Social Democracy. I don't know what sort of fantasyland you live in, but as far as German Marxists of the period who are likely to be influential in a contemporary context outside of an academic Marxist circle jerk, Luxemburg takes the cake. Like, some people in the real world have even heard of her, and a few find her, oh, I don't know . . . inspiring?

So like, without listing that she started two goddamn parties, a newspaper, played leading roles in other radical formations, and goddamn died in an abortive revolution . . . well, actually, I guess I just did do that. Point being, "overshadowed as a practical revolutionary"?

Augh. Everything, just . . . no. STFU.

[Red Enemy]

Dear l'Enfermé,
More people have read Luxembourg than the other folk you mention combined. Reform or Revolution is a classic, as is Organizational Questions
of the Russian Social Democracy. I don't know what sort of fantasyland you live in, but as far as German Marxists of the period who are likely to be influential in a contemporary context outside of an academic Marxist circle jerk, Luxemburg takes the cake. Like, some people in the real world have even heard of her, and a few find her, oh, I don't know . . . inspiring?

So like, without listing that she started two goddamn parties, a newspaper, played leading roles in other radical formations, and goddamn died in an abortive revolution . . . well, actually, I guess I just did do that. Point being, "overshadowed as a practical revolutionary"?

Augh. Everything, just . . . no. STFU.
Luxemburg has been influential across the board; from anarchists, to left comms, to Trots, and beyond.

[Aurora]

Happy birthday Rosa, hopefully we can stop you spinning in your grave sometime soon..


parliamentary cretins

....

parliamentary cretinism
Please stop using this term everywhere, it's getting rather annoying.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Luxemburg is one of my top 5 favorite historical figures, an all around rad human being.

[Yuppie Grinder]

How do you figure that? The real "importance" of Marx/Engels is the influence their thought and practical activity had on the proletarian socialist movement. In this regard, as a practical revolutionary, she is overshadowed by contemporaries like K. Liebknecht or Leviné, or those that came before her but after Marx/Engels, like Bebel and W. Liebknecht. As a Marxist theorist, she had very little influence on the movement compared to most of her contemporary German Marxist theorists. And I'm not talking just about Kautsky(like you've guessed), but also about major "Marxist" theorists during the inter-war revolutionary period. The left-coms/Councilists, like Rühle and Pannekoek were much more "important" than Luxemburg. Even Thalheimer was more "important" than her as a theorist. She left literally no theoretical legacy. The KPD was immediately Bolshevised, the ultra-lefts had their own shit going on and the Social-Democrats drifted even more to the right.


"Luxemburgism" is not and never has been an actual ideology or tendency in any meaningful sense.
You're just wrong, nothing more to it. Luxemburg is vastly more influential than any of those people in the realm of genuinely proletarian politics. The only people who can compete is the Liebknechts. You can't say someone didn't leave a practical or theoretical impact when they dyed a martyr for the cause of emancipation, helped form the Spartacus league and the KPD and the whole of the anti-Stalinist revolutionary left claims her as an influence.

[Ravachol]

How do you figure that? The real "importance" of Marx/Engels is the influence their thought and practical activity had on the proletarian socialist movement.

soooo..... where does this leave the likes of you and DNZ and all the other 'Orthodox Marxists'/whateverists?

[Red Enemy]

Happy birthday Rosa, hopefully we can stop you spinning in your grave sometime soon..


Please stop using this term everywhere, it's getting rather annoying.
I don't give two shit about what does, or does not, annoy you.

They are parliamentary cretins.

[Yet_Another_Boring_Marxist]

I don't give two shit about what does, or does not, annoy you.

They are parliamentary cretins.
I actually like this term.

In my opinion Revolutionary leftists need to draw a fine line in the sand over who is revolutionary and who isn't, that is based on practice rather than theory. And this term does so perfectly.

[cynicles]

I like how she can still evoke the hatred of so many groups after all these years. To say nothing of the fact that she's basically the only human being who can legitimately claim to be the antihitler.

[l'Enfermé]

soooo..... where does this leave the likes of you and DNZ and all the other 'Orthodox Marxists'/whateverists?
You're gonna have to rephrase the question because it doesn't really make sense.


Dear l'Enfermé,
More people have read Luxembourg than the other folk you mention combined. Reform or Revolution is a classic, as is Organizational Questions
of the Russian Social Democracy. I don't know what sort of fantasyland you live in, but as far as German Marxists of the period who are likely to be influential in a contemporary context outside of an academic Marxist circle jerk, Luxemburg takes the cake. Like, some people in the real world have even heard of her, and a few find her, oh, I don't know . . . inspiring?

So like, without listing that she started two goddamn parties, a newspaper, played leading roles in other radical formations, and goddamn died in an abortive revolution . . . well, actually, I guess I just did do that. Point being, "overshadowed as a practical revolutionary"?

Augh. Everything, just . . . no. STFU.
No.

I could care less about how many university students have read Luxemburg in the 21st century. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the worker's movement, when there was such a thing. As you might know, in the 1860s, a socialist worker's movement arose in Germany, which became dominated by the Marxists in the 1870s. Luxemburg joined the German movement in 1898 and until 1914, was the leading theoretician of the "Left-Radicals" in it. In this period of 16 years of opposition, she accomplished nothing, really. Literally nothing. She wasn't even able to organise the opposite to the Center and the right-wing - the founding meeting of the future Spartacists, the famed August 4 1914 meeting in her apartment, was just her and 6 other social-democrats. Then she was one of the leading members of the KPD, a sect with only a few thousand members. And that, only for a couple of weeks - 15 days after Liebknecht's and Luxemburg's Spartacists merged with IKD to form the KPD, Luxemburg was killed following a botched uprising. The vast majority of her already tiny following abandoned her as an ideoalogic leader and Bolshevised or turned to left-communism as the revolutionary struggle intensified.

And you are telling me that this person is the most important German Marxist since Marx and Engels? Instead of one of her contemporaries, that lead and organised hundreds of thousands communist proletarians? Not one of them, but Luxemburg, who is most famous for perishing in poorly thought-out and badly-planned insurrection in Berlin?

Really?

[l'Enfermé]

Yes, and luckily, they didn't have the likes of the parliamentary cretins and theoreticians of the swamp like Kautsky in their way ;).
Obsess over Kautsky in every thread. Ok, sure.


Why is that? Why are you gauging by influence, because you could easily say Ebert and Scheidemann were more important by your standards.Why? Are you insane? How is Luxemburg a more "important" Marxist than German left-communists who had hundreds of thousands of followers at the time or even Karl Liebknecht?


Yes, like Kautsky, who lead the German proletariat into reformism and parliamentary cretinism.Kautsky, Kautsky, Kautsky, Kautsky. You're like a broken record.


Why is it... could it be because they didn't die in the first month of 1919? Had time to develop theories after seeing the Russian experiment? Her own politics developed towards more of a 1918/1919 Bolshevik leftism, perhaps similar to Gavril Myasnikov.So Luxemburg is more important than Rühle because if she didn't die because of a botched uprising, she might have become more important than him?


You've read the mass strike, right? That bit you and your comrades claim is a theory of spontaneity?
Yes, I have, when I was an ultra-left. Since I became a Marxist I'm not very fond of what are essentially Bakuninist proposals.


Your point? You continue to gauge the importance of all these men on shallow grounds.Making an actual difference, organising and leading hundreds of thousands of communist workers, and leaving a mark on labour history=shallow grounds. Oh, ok...