Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919)
Author of Reform or Revolution
About the Author
Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919). Polish-born revolutionary who was a leader of the left-wing movement in Germany from 1898 until her murder in 1919
Image credit: From Wikimedia Commons
Series
Works by Rosa Luxemburg
Reform or Revolution and Other Writings (Dover Books on History, Political and Social Science) (1975) 160 copies, 2 reviews
The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Volume IV: Political Writings 2, On Revolution (1906-1909) (Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, 4) (2022) 34 copies
The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Volume III: Political Writings 1: On Revolution-1897-1905 (2019) 33 copies
The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions & The Junius Pamphlet (1971) 25 copies, 1 review
Rosa Luxemburg: Socialism or Barbarism: Selected Writings (Get Political) (2010) 24 copies, 1 review
Die Ordnung herrscht in Berlin 11 copies
Writings of Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution, the National Question, and Other Essays (2010) 11 copies
Rosa Luxemburg und die Freiheit der Andersdenkenden. Extraausgabe des unvollendeten Manuskripts "Zur Russischen Revolution" und anderer Quellen zur Polemik mit Lenin (1990) — some editions — 8 copies
Världskriget och de europeiska revolutionerna : politiska skrifter i urval 1914-1919 (1985) 7 copies
The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Volume V: Political Writings 3, On Revolution 1910–1919 (2024) 5 copies
Rosa Luxemburgs 'Akkumulation des Kapitals': Die Aktualität von ökonomischer Theorie, Imperialismuserklärung und Klassenanalyse (2013) 3 copies
Politische Schriften. 1 3 copies
Politische Schriften. 2 3 copies
Per conoscere Rosa Luxemburg 3 copies
Fñgelsebrev 2 copies
The Russian Revolution 2 copies
L'état Bourgeois et la Révolution 2 copies
Lettres et tracts de spartacus 2 copies
Herbier de prison: (1915 - 1918) 2 copies
Obras escogidas (I) 2 copies
Lettres de la Prison 2 copies
Ρώσικη Επανάσταση 2 copies
Ristagno e progresso nel marxismo 2 copies
Lettere 1893-1919 2 copies
Ons program en de politieke situatie 2 copies
Sevgiliye Mektuplar 1 copy
Wybór pism, tom II 1 copy
Femmes, corps et révolution 1 copy
The Junius Pamphlet 1 copy
Rosa Luxemburg Speaks 1 copy
Wybór pism, tom I 1 copy
Σοσιαλισμός και δημοκρατία 1 copy
Obras Escogidas, 2 vols. 1 copy
Praia 1 copy
Œuvres III - L'accumulation du capital I - Contribution à l'explication économique de l'impérialisme 1 copy
Socialism or barbarism 1 copy
BRIEFE AUS DEM GEFÄNGNIS 1 copy
Reform or Revolution? Part 1 1 copy
Rosa Luxemburg 1 copy
Gesammelte Werke, 5 vols. 1 copy
Die industrielle Entwicklung Polens : Inaugural-Dissertation an der Universität Zürich (2012) 1 copy
Terrore 1 copy
Rosa Luxemburg: Briefe aus dem Gefängnis: Denken und Erfahrungen der internationalen Revolutionärin 1 copy
A Causa da Derrota 1 copy
Izbrani spisi 1 copy
Cuvantari si articole alese 1 copy
Luxemburg, Rosa Archive 1 copy
Kartenhaeuser 1 copy
Grèves sauvages, spontanéité des masses L'expérience belge de grève générale Lénine et le mouvement syndical (1973) 1 copy
Luxemburg 1 copy
Werke Band 1|1, 1|2, 3 u. 4 1 copy
Podruštvljavanje društva 1 copy
Socialdemokratijos krizė 1 copy
Ulusal Ekonomiye Giriş 1 copy
Associated Works
The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power: Documents, 1918-1919; Preparing the Founding Congress (1986) — Contributor — 30 copies
The Revolutionary Philosophy of Marxism: Selected Writings on Dialectical Materialism (2018) — Contributor — 9 copies
Es muss einer den Frieden beginnen: Jahrhundertautoren gegen den Krieg (2014) — Contributor — 2 copies, 1 review
Essays on Revolutionary Marxism in Britain and Ireland from the 1930s to the 1960s; Revolutionary History, Volume 6, No 2/3, Summer 1996 — Contributor — 1 copy
Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht und die revolutionäre KPD (1918): [mit dem Originalprogramm der KPD von 1918] (2004) — Associated Name — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Luxemburg, Rosalia
Luksemburg, Róża
Luksenburg, Rozalia (birthname) - Birthdate
- 1871-03-05
- Date of death
- 1919-01-15
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Zurich
- Occupations
- revolutionary
Marxist theorist
philosopher
economist - Organizations
- SDKP (Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland)
SPD (Social Democratic Party of Germany)
Spartacist League
KPD (Communist Party of Germany) - Relationships
- Liebknecht, Karl
Kautsky, Karl
Kautsky, Luise
Leonhard, Susanne (friend) - Short biography
- Rosa Luxemburg was the youngest of five children born to a lower middle-class Jewish family living in the Polish region of Russia. She became interested in politics as a young girl. At 16, she graduated at the top of her class at gymnasium in Warsaw, but was denied the gold medal because of "an oppositional attitude toward the authorities." In 1889, Rosa went to Zurich University to study law and political economy. In Switzerland she met numerous political exiles, including Leo Jogiches, with whom she began a long romantic relationship; though a few years later, she married Gustav Lübeck to obtain German citizenship. She settled in Berlin, where she joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD). She was active in revolutionary politics in Poland, Lithuania, France, and Germany and was imprisoned on several occasions for this and for opposing World War I. A leading Marxist theorist, she published numerous pamphlets and books including The Accumulation of Capital (1913). She and Karl Liebknecht co-founded the Spartakusbund -- Spartacus League or Spartacists -- which eventually became the German Communist Party. During the German Revolution of 1918-1919, Rosa founded Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag), the newspaper of the Spartacist movement. When the revolt was crushed by the government and the Freikorps (right-wing paramilitary groups), Rosa Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and some of their supporters were captured and murdered while in police custody.
- Cause of death
- Ermordet
- Nationality
- Germany (passport)
Poland (birth) - Birthplace
- Zamość, Poland
- Places of residence
- Zamość, Poland (birth)
Warsaw, Poland
Zürich, Switzerland
Berlin, Germany - Place of death
- Berlin, Deutsches Reich
- Burial location
- Zentralfriedhof Friedrichsfelde, Berlin, Deutschland
- Associated Place (for map)
- Poland
Members
Reviews
The National Question: Selected Writings by Rosa Luxemburg (Monthly Review Press Classic Titles, 24) by Rosa Luxemburg
The National Question: Selected Writings (1976), edited by Horace B. Davis and authored by Rosa Luxemburg, represents a crucial intervention in Marxist debates on nationalism, imperialism, and proletarian internationalism. Published by Monthly Review Press, the volume gathers Luxemburg’s writings from the early twentieth century, particularly those addressing the Polish question and broader theoretical disputes within socialist movements. As a collection, it functions less as a unified show more monograph than as a polemical archive, preserving a sustained critique of what Luxemburg perceived as the ideological and strategic limitations of nationalist politics within Marxism.
Luxemburg’s central argument is both uncompromising and dialectical. Against contemporaries such as Vladimir Lenin, she rejects the principle of national self-determination as a viable or progressive political demand under capitalism. In essays such as “The National Question and Autonomy” and “There Can Be No Self-Determination Under Capitalism,” she contends that the nation is not a coherent political subject but a socially stratified formation dominated by bourgeois interests. The demand for national independence, therefore, obscures class antagonisms and diverts proletarian struggle into channels ultimately compatible with capitalist development. As the collection demonstrates, Luxemburg’s position is not a denial of national oppression per se, but a refusal to treat nationalism as a revolutionary solution to it. 
One of the volume’s most significant contributions lies in its theoretical rigor. Luxemburg situates the national question within the broader dynamics of capitalist expansion and imperial competition. She argues that the historical trajectory of capitalism tends toward the integration and subordination of smaller national economies within larger imperial systems, rendering the ideal of autonomous national development increasingly illusory. In this sense, her critique anticipates later theories of dependency and uneven development, even as it remains firmly rooted in classical Marxist categories. The essays collected here thus reveal a thinker deeply attentive to the global dimensions of capitalist modernity, resisting the parochialism that often characterized nationalist discourse.
At the same time, the collection exposes the limits of Luxemburg’s framework. Her skepticism toward national movements occasionally verges on dismissal, particularly in her treatment of Eastern European and colonial contexts. Critics have noted that her analysis can underestimate the mobilizing power of national identity and the ways in which anti-colonial struggles might intersect with class politics. The sharpness of her polemic against Lenin and other Marxists who supported national self-determination sometimes obscures the practical dilemmas faced by socialist movements operating within multiethnic empires. The volume’s emphasis on theoretical consistency, while intellectually formidable, leaves unresolved the question of how revolutionary politics might engage with concrete national grievances without capitulating to bourgeois nationalism.
Davis’s editorial work is crucial in situating these writings for an Anglophone audience. His introduction frames Luxemburg’s arguments within the historical debates of the Second International and highlights their enduring relevance in the context of twentieth-century decolonization. However, the editorial apparatus remains relatively restrained, allowing Luxemburg’s voice to dominate the text. This decision reinforces the collection’s character as a primary source, though it places a greater burden on the reader to supply historical and theoretical context.
Stylistically, Luxemburg’s prose combines analytical precision with rhetorical intensity. Her writing is marked by a polemical clarity that reflects the urgency of intra-socialist debates in the years preceding the First World War. Unlike more systematizing Marxist theorists, Luxemburg writes in a mode that is simultaneously argumentative and insurgent, seeking not only to interpret the national question but to reshape the strategic orientation of the socialist movement itself.
From a contemporary scholarly perspective, The National Question remains indispensable. It offers a counterpoint to more accommodationist Marxist approaches to nationalism and continues to inform debates on internationalism, globalization, and the limits of nation-state politics. While subsequent scholarship has revised and, in some cases, challenged Luxemburg’s conclusions, the collection endures as a testament to the theoretical ambitions and internal conflicts of early twentieth-century socialism. Its value lies not only in the positions it advances but in the questions it compels readers to reconsider: the relationship between class and nation, the possibilities of international solidarity, and the enduring tensions between political strategy and ideological coherence. show less
Luxemburg’s central argument is both uncompromising and dialectical. Against contemporaries such as Vladimir Lenin, she rejects the principle of national self-determination as a viable or progressive political demand under capitalism. In essays such as “The National Question and Autonomy” and “There Can Be No Self-Determination Under Capitalism,” she contends that the nation is not a coherent political subject but a socially stratified formation dominated by bourgeois interests. The demand for national independence, therefore, obscures class antagonisms and diverts proletarian struggle into channels ultimately compatible with capitalist development. As the collection demonstrates, Luxemburg’s position is not a denial of national oppression per se, but a refusal to treat nationalism as a revolutionary solution to it. 
One of the volume’s most significant contributions lies in its theoretical rigor. Luxemburg situates the national question within the broader dynamics of capitalist expansion and imperial competition. She argues that the historical trajectory of capitalism tends toward the integration and subordination of smaller national economies within larger imperial systems, rendering the ideal of autonomous national development increasingly illusory. In this sense, her critique anticipates later theories of dependency and uneven development, even as it remains firmly rooted in classical Marxist categories. The essays collected here thus reveal a thinker deeply attentive to the global dimensions of capitalist modernity, resisting the parochialism that often characterized nationalist discourse.
At the same time, the collection exposes the limits of Luxemburg’s framework. Her skepticism toward national movements occasionally verges on dismissal, particularly in her treatment of Eastern European and colonial contexts. Critics have noted that her analysis can underestimate the mobilizing power of national identity and the ways in which anti-colonial struggles might intersect with class politics. The sharpness of her polemic against Lenin and other Marxists who supported national self-determination sometimes obscures the practical dilemmas faced by socialist movements operating within multiethnic empires. The volume’s emphasis on theoretical consistency, while intellectually formidable, leaves unresolved the question of how revolutionary politics might engage with concrete national grievances without capitulating to bourgeois nationalism.
Davis’s editorial work is crucial in situating these writings for an Anglophone audience. His introduction frames Luxemburg’s arguments within the historical debates of the Second International and highlights their enduring relevance in the context of twentieth-century decolonization. However, the editorial apparatus remains relatively restrained, allowing Luxemburg’s voice to dominate the text. This decision reinforces the collection’s character as a primary source, though it places a greater burden on the reader to supply historical and theoretical context.
Stylistically, Luxemburg’s prose combines analytical precision with rhetorical intensity. Her writing is marked by a polemical clarity that reflects the urgency of intra-socialist debates in the years preceding the First World War. Unlike more systematizing Marxist theorists, Luxemburg writes in a mode that is simultaneously argumentative and insurgent, seeking not only to interpret the national question but to reshape the strategic orientation of the socialist movement itself.
From a contemporary scholarly perspective, The National Question remains indispensable. It offers a counterpoint to more accommodationist Marxist approaches to nationalism and continues to inform debates on internationalism, globalization, and the limits of nation-state politics. While subsequent scholarship has revised and, in some cases, challenged Luxemburg’s conclusions, the collection endures as a testament to the theoretical ambitions and internal conflicts of early twentieth-century socialism. Its value lies not only in the positions it advances but in the questions it compels readers to reconsider: the relationship between class and nation, the possibilities of international solidarity, and the enduring tensions between political strategy and ideological coherence. show less
Reform or Revolution and Other Writings (Dover Books on History, Political and Social Science) by Rosa Luxemburg
The more one reads of Rosa Luxemburg's astute political dissections, the more one realises the disservice done to humanity by her untimely demise.
Rosa respects Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, but refuses to join the fan club. She is quite willing to review their actions and is keen to emphasise that Marxism is a set of possibilities, not an instruction book to be followed word for word. If only certain other people had this wisdom.
Rosa is ALWAYS worth reading.
Rosa respects Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, but refuses to join the fan club. She is quite willing to review their actions and is keen to emphasise that Marxism is a set of possibilities, not an instruction book to be followed word for word. If only certain other people had this wisdom.
Rosa is ALWAYS worth reading.
Rosa Luxemburg was a great socialist in the genuine Marxist tradition of “socialism from below”. This excellent selection of her writings shows clearly that her view, like that of Marx himself, was that socialism means the self-emancipation of the working class. As such, socialism has to be based on workers’ democracy. If she had lived to see them, she would certainly have been totally opposed to the Stalinist regimes in Russia, Eastern Europe, China etc which call/called themselves show more “communist”, but which are/were in fact bureaucratic state capitalist tyrannies.
This book also shows that Luxemburg was – as all socialists should be – a true internationalist. She was one of the few who opposed the First World War and its terrible slaughter right from the start. She knew that capitalist economic competition spills over into military competition between rival capitalist/imperialist powers. WWI only ended after workers’ revolutions broke out in Russia and Germany. Unfortunately, the German Revolution failed, and Luxemburg herself was murdered by right wing soldiers in Berlin in 1919. This left the Russian Revolution isolated, resulting in Stalin’s counter-revolution in the 1920s.
Early in the war, Luxemburg said that the future of humanity was either socialism or barbarism. (Hence the title of this book.) She herself saw the barbarism of the First World War, but she didn’t live to see just how right she was. In the twentieth century capitalism gave us economic crisis, fascism, Stalinism, another world war, and the Holocaust. Today capitalism is giving us more economic crises, the growth of the fascists again, climate change, and the constant danger of nuclear war.
Luxemburg’s support for - and criticisms of - Lenin are put into context by the editors of this book. Luxemburg had one or two weaknesses compared to Lenin – particularly on the question of oppressed nations and on the best way to build a revolutionary party that could win over the majority of workers. But overall, Rosa Luxemburg was a shining light whose politics are just as relevant today as they ever were. show less
This book also shows that Luxemburg was – as all socialists should be – a true internationalist. She was one of the few who opposed the First World War and its terrible slaughter right from the start. She knew that capitalist economic competition spills over into military competition between rival capitalist/imperialist powers. WWI only ended after workers’ revolutions broke out in Russia and Germany. Unfortunately, the German Revolution failed, and Luxemburg herself was murdered by right wing soldiers in Berlin in 1919. This left the Russian Revolution isolated, resulting in Stalin’s counter-revolution in the 1920s.
Early in the war, Luxemburg said that the future of humanity was either socialism or barbarism. (Hence the title of this book.) She herself saw the barbarism of the First World War, but she didn’t live to see just how right she was. In the twentieth century capitalism gave us economic crisis, fascism, Stalinism, another world war, and the Holocaust. Today capitalism is giving us more economic crises, the growth of the fascists again, climate change, and the constant danger of nuclear war.
Luxemburg’s support for - and criticisms of - Lenin are put into context by the editors of this book. Luxemburg had one or two weaknesses compared to Lenin – particularly on the question of oppressed nations and on the best way to build a revolutionary party that could win over the majority of workers. But overall, Rosa Luxemburg was a shining light whose politics are just as relevant today as they ever were. show less
This is effectively two long articles combined in one small book, and re-reading it after many years, I can now understand it in a different light than before.
Rosa Luxemburg has been claimed by many competing left groups ranging from moderate Social Democrats to Trotskyists and Stalinists. The essays here provide arguments for all sides. For example, the uncompleted book that constitutes ‘The Russian Revolution’ is full of praise for Lenin and the Bolsheviks. And its criticisms largely show more come from the left, not the right. Luxemburg opposed early Bolshevik decisions to give land to the peasants (she proposes a kind of collectivization instead). And she absolutely detests the Bolshevik decision to support the right of nations to self-determination. (On this later point she had a history: she was an opponent of Polish independence even as leader of one of Poland’s Social Democratic parties.)
But she also comes down hard on the Bolsheviks for their decision to disperse the elected Constituent Assembly in early 1918, and for their refusal to guarantee freedom of the press and the right to assembly. It’s a mixed bag, and it’s incomplete. There are many “notes to self” throughout.
The second article was written a decade and a half earlier and it is Luxemburg’s answer to Lenin’s proposals regarding the structure of the Russian Social Democratic Party. Lenin was advocating a kind of ‘ultra-centralisation’ which Luxemburg opposed. She was far more convinced that the masses on their own could create the revolution without the help of an all-powerful, all-knowing Central Committee. The last line of the book has become very well known: ‘Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.’
A book as complicated as its author, with arguments to justify many interpretations — but recommended reading nonetheless. show less
Rosa Luxemburg has been claimed by many competing left groups ranging from moderate Social Democrats to Trotskyists and Stalinists. The essays here provide arguments for all sides. For example, the uncompleted book that constitutes ‘The Russian Revolution’ is full of praise for Lenin and the Bolsheviks. And its criticisms largely show more come from the left, not the right. Luxemburg opposed early Bolshevik decisions to give land to the peasants (she proposes a kind of collectivization instead). And she absolutely detests the Bolshevik decision to support the right of nations to self-determination. (On this later point she had a history: she was an opponent of Polish independence even as leader of one of Poland’s Social Democratic parties.)
But she also comes down hard on the Bolsheviks for their decision to disperse the elected Constituent Assembly in early 1918, and for their refusal to guarantee freedom of the press and the right to assembly. It’s a mixed bag, and it’s incomplete. There are many “notes to self” throughout.
The second article was written a decade and a half earlier and it is Luxemburg’s answer to Lenin’s proposals regarding the structure of the Russian Social Democratic Party. Lenin was advocating a kind of ‘ultra-centralisation’ which Luxemburg opposed. She was far more convinced that the masses on their own could create the revolution without the help of an all-powerful, all-knowing Central Committee. The last line of the book has become very well known: ‘Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.’
A book as complicated as its author, with arguments to justify many interpretations — but recommended reading nonetheless. show less
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Statistics
- Works
- 243
- Also by
- 6
- Members
- 3,072
- Popularity
- #8,308
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 28
- ISBNs
- 350
- Languages
- 17
- Favorited
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