The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg - Hardcover

Luxemburg, Rosa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1844674533 ISBN 13: 9781844674534

Publisher: Verso, 2011

Synopsis

This is the most comprehensive collection of letters by Rosa Luxemburg ever published in English, including 190 letters written to leading figures in the European and international labor and socialist movements––Leo Jogiches, Karl Kautsky, Clara Zetkin and Karl Liebknecht––who were her closest friends, lovers and colleagues. Many of these letters appear for the first time in English translation; all help to illuminate the inner life of this iconic revolutionary, who was at once an economic and social theorist, a political activist and a lyrical stylist. Her political concerns are revealed alongside her personal struggles within a socialist movement that was often hostile to independently minded women. This collection will provide readers with a newer and deeper appreciation of Luxemburg as a writer and historical figure.

About this title

About the Author

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) was a Polish-born Jewish revolutionary and one of the greatest theoretical minds of the European socialist movement. An activist in Germany and Poland, the author of numerous classic works, she participated in the founding of the German Communist Party and the Spartacist insurrection in Berlin in 1919. She was assassinated in January of that year and has become a hero of socialist, communist and feminist movements around the world.

Annelies Laschitza, based in Germany, has produced a number of works focusing on the history of the labor movement in Germany at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Century century. She has achieved worldwide recognition for editing of the Collected Letters of Luxemburg [in 6 volumes] as well as serving as co-editor of Luxemburg’s Collected Writings [in German]. She worked as a consultant for Margarethe von Trotta’s film “Rosa Luxemburg” [1986] and has produced an important [600-page] biography of Luxemburg, Full of Life, Despite Everything. Her work on Karl Liebknecht includes the book, The Liebknechts, Karl and Sophie: Politics and Family—the most comprehensive study of the life and work of Karl Liebknecht.

Peter Hudis is a Lecturer at Oakton Community College. He coedited The Letters of Rosa luxemburg; The Rosa Luxemburg Reader; and Raya Dunayevskaya’s Selected Writings on the Dialectic in Hegel and Marx.

Reviews

In spite of her identity as a Polish Jew, Communist activist Luxemburg (1871–1919) used her singular personality to immerse herself in party organization even as she shaped the movement's message through her editing, orating, and tireless campaigning. A cofounder of the German Communist Party, Luxemburg expressed unfailing passion in her letters (supplemented here by substantial footnotes), revealing her personal sacrifices even while chastising colleagues who failed her. Among these were lovers addressed in early naïve, love-torn letters. Later, lengthy missives expressed well-considered economic and political stances, referring to her published works, and her censored letters, sent while imprisoned for agitation against WWI and insulting the Prussian king, exhibit delicacy when discussing the safe subjects of botany, wild birds, and her beloved cat, Mimi. Using her extensive information network two decades before WWII, Luxemburg accurately predicted the "pogroms against Jews in Germany." This volume gives personal insight into a remarkable (and controversial) woman, who was assassinated at age 47, and adds meaningful context to any study of early Western socialism. (Mar.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1844674533
• ISBN 13: 9781844674534
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 656
• Editor: Laschitza Annelies, Adler Georg, Hudis Peter