Rosa Luxemburg: Ideas in Action

This biography of German Marxist and revolutionary leader Rosa Luxemburg is an excellent introduction to the life and work of this remarkable woman. Written by a contemporary of Rosa Luxemburg in the German Social Democratic Party, this book traces her life from youth in Poland to her rise as one of the outstanding figures in the Marxist movement. Luxemburg was one of the first to take up the political struggle against the revisionist theories of Eduard Bernstein who attempted to substitute a program of reform for the revolutionary perspective of Marxism. With the outbreak of war in 1914, Luxemburg was among the few in the German Social Democratic leadership who adopted an internationalist stand against the war. Her assassination in 1919 along with Karl Liebknecht at the hands of the German Social Democracy was a political crime for which the German and international working class paid an enormous price. This book recounts all these events in an accessible manner that illuminates one of the critical periods in the history of the Marxist movement.