Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg was a German Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and revolutionary socialist. She was of Polish-Jewish descent but became a naturalized German citizen. She was a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), and the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). She was shattered when the SPD supported the German involvement in World War I. She and Karl Liebknecht co-founded the anti-war Spartacus League which eventually became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). During the German Revolution, she founded the ‘Die Rote Fahne’ or ‘The Red Flag’, the Spartacus newspaper. During the Spartacus led uprising that broke out following the end of World War I, she and her supporters were captured and murdered. She realized that German militarism and imperialism would bring war which she wanted to prevent at all costs. She wanted to establish a dictatorship of the proletarian but she was not in favor of Lenin’s idea of one-party Bolshevik government that came to power by force. She wanted the workers to unite and come to power. She also realized that revolutions could happen not only in industrialized nations, but also in underdeveloped countries. As a young revolutionary and feminist, she challenged mindsets that stereotyped women. Her life is still an inspiration for socialists all over the world.