Rosa Luxemburg: biography, positioning, theory

pinkLuxembourg she was a Polish philosopher and activist communist and feminist. His intellectual contributions include critical analysis about Marxist thought and new reading proposals for socialism, as well as an intense activist struggle for the rights of European workers. As a feminist, the thinker allied the Marxism to feminism, when speaking of the need to include women in militancy and dealing with the issue of female workers as a particular issue in relation to the struggle for rights.

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Biography of Rosa Luxemburg

RozaliaLuksemburg is the original name of the Polish philosopher, sociologist, economist and political theorist known in Brazil as Rosa Luxemburg. Is it over there was born in 1871, in Poland, in a Jewish family. Her father was a wood merchant, and the family moved to the city of Warsaw in 1873.

In 1880, the philosopher joined the high school (basic education, which refers to the second phase of our Elementary School and High School), in which she achieved great performance and

 was described as rebellious and subversive. Still in the gym, Rosa Luxemburg joined the Party of the Proletariat, of orientation socialist, and organized a strike. The mutiny organized by party members resulted in the death of four workers and the consequent dissolution of the political organization. Rosa and party members were not arrested.

Rosa Luxemburg, Polish philosopher, economist and communist activist.[1]

In 1889, an arrest warrant (the first of several) was issued against the philosopher, who flees to Switzerland and enters the law course at the University of Applied Sciences in Zurich. In 1898, Rosa Luxemburg defends his doctoral thesis titled The industrial development of Polonia. In her period of studies, the thinker delved into economics, philosophy politics and sociology.

pink inintegrated the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party, the RSDRP, but soon left the institution due to political disagreements. Both members of the Polish Socialist Party and members of the RSDRP were in favor of the self-determination of the Polish peoples (Poland was dominated by Russia, and the self-determination is the defense of political autonomy for ethnic groups, without external interference), but Luxemburg considered self-determination a weakening factor for the socialist movement.

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It was with the Lithuanian socialist activist Leo Jogiches that Rosa Luxemburg founded the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland (SDRP). In 1898, Rosa Luxemburg moved from Zurich to Berlin and married the intellectual and activist in front of her. anarchist Gustav Lübeck to get German citizenship.

In Germany, the philosopher joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In general, Social Democrats were against the revolution and in favor of political reformism. pink defended reformism as a means of action, but she was in favor of a radical but slow social transformation. in defense of the proletariat. The defense of social reform as the end of social democracy was maintained by revisionists of Marxism, such as political theorist Eduard Bernstein. In 1900, Luxembourg writes the book Reform or revolution?, in criticism of Bernstein's revisionism and extreme reformism.

Luxembourg picked up fights within the party, demanding the expulsion of the reformists and advocating a more radical socialist stance, which did not actually happen. However, Marxist socialism continued to integrate the ideological bases of the party, and Rosa Luxemburg gained the respect of the members. In 1902, Luxembourg divorced Lübeck. In 1904, the intellectual wasprey, being the first of many arrests.

In 1905, Luxembourg went on to defend the Russian Revolution of 1905, defending the Bolsheviks (left-wing radicals) against the Russian Empire. During this period she was arrested in Russia, being detained for three months. From 1906 onwards, she began to develop her theory of political struggle based on general strikes. In 1907, she was arrested again for the same reason as in 1905: anti-war agitation. Between 1907 and 1914, she served as a teacher at the School of the Social Democratic Party.

In 1914, Luxembourg was arrested, tried and sentenced to one year in prison for inciting civil disobedience. In 1915, the philosopher was arrested again for showing up against the war and the militarist formation of the nation, being held back until 1918. Disagreements with the party resulted in her leaving the Social Democrats.

Logo of the German Communist Party.

After leaving prison, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht founded the Communist Party of Germany. Internal conflicts resulted in the persecution and murder of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, along with Wilhelm Pieck. The three were the main leaders of the Communist Party of Germany.

See too: Social-democracy – a set of practices aimed at opposing liberalism

Rosa Luxemburg and feminism 

Rosa Luxemburg did not directly theorize the feminism. However, her emancipated life and her writings against the oppression of working women yielded a great legacy for the later discussions of the feminist movement.

The philosopher lived a life completely contrary to what the society of her time prescribed to women: she dated the revolutionary militant Leo Jogiches for a long time and broke the relationship due to the infidelity of Games. She married only to receive German citizenship, and after the period of need for marriage, she divorced. Luxembourg led an active life, unafraid of facing the challenges of the misogynist world that didn't give a woman credit. The constant struggle in social movements and her strong personality attest to her highly feminist stance.

There are few texts in which the philosopher speaks directly of women, but there are intellectual indications that she was what is called feminist socialist. Feminist socialists focus the problem of oppression on the issue of social class, but they also see the importance of rooting out gender oppression.

unions

Rosa Luxemburg's theory of revolutionary action, expressly developed from 1905 onwards, was based on union struggle and in the strike movement. Luxemburg was not a supporter of an armed revolution, she preferred a milder movement, in the reformist milieu, but not without a struggle. The philosopher defended the formation of unions to unite and support the struggle of workers.

Cover of “The Russian Revolution”, by Rosa Luxemburg. [1]

In 1906, when she was living in prison, Rosa Luxemburg wrote the book Mass strike, parties and unions. The book is based on the experience of the militant in the Russian Revolution of 1905, a revolutionary mass movement that exploded in imperial Russia in 1905.

socialism or barbarism 

“Socialism or barbarism” was the motto adopted by Rosa Luxemburg to inspire her life and struggle. She realized that capitalism was heading, in the 20th century, towards the barbarism of militarism and wars. The philosopher understood that, to curb the wave of war that ravaged the population, it was necessary overthrow the capitalist system.

The European situation was on the way to barbarism. Capitalism, in Luxemburg's reading, would lead Europe to collapse, leaving serious consequences only among the working classes, as the bourgeoisie would not suffer from the ills caused by the war.

Also access: Historical materialism – a critical concept to capitalism created by Marx and Engels

Rosa Luxemburg: thought and action

This is most famous biography written about Rosa Luxemburg. The book was written by the intellectual and communist activist Paul Fröhlich, a friend of hers and one of the founders of the Communist Party of Germany. Fröhlich runs through the life of the philosopher's struggle for social movements and at the same time appeals to the exposition of her friend's philosophical and economic theory.

In addition, the work undoes a historical error to regard Rosa Luxemburg as an anti-Bolshevik social democrat for defending reform and not revolution. She, however, as shown in the work, supported the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution of 1905.

Image credit

[1] Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-14077-006 / commons

by Francisco Porfirio
Sociology Professor