Letters from prison. The letters included in this collection are addressed to Sophia Liebknecht. ?????? ?? ?????? - ??????, ???????? ? ???? ???????, ?????????? ????? ????????

LUXEMBURG, Rosa

Published by St Petersburg State publishing house 1921

About this Item

Softback. First Edition. Text in Russian. The covers are in good, clean condition, with just a touch of marking to them. Although printed on cheap paper, internally the work is clean and tidy, with just a little darkening and rusting to the staples. Illegible owner s signature to the top edge of the title page. The letters included in this collection are addressed to Sophie Liebknecht, wife of Karl Liebknecht. The letters are not political, and only rarely mention politics. Instead, they are personal letters between two friends, and she speaks of the natural world, and botany, which greatly interested her. This appears to be the true first of these letters. There was a Moscow printing of "Letters from Prison" in 1920, but this was of a different length, and as far as we can see, was not the letters to Sophie Liebknecht. We are unable to trace FirstSearch records of this edition. The Letters were subsequently published in English in 1923, and in French in 1933. Although we think of Soviet St Petersburg as Leningrad, in fact, the name was not changed until 1924. With Karl Liebknecht, Luxemburg founded the International Group / Spartacus League. They opposed Germany s stance in the First World War, and urged worker s strikes to undermine this. As a result, Luxemburg and Liebknecht were imprisoned in June 1916 for two and a half years. (It was during this time that these letters were written). Luxemburg continued to write and friends secretly smuggled out and illegally published her articles. Among them was "Die Russische Revolution", criticising the Bolsheviks and accusing them of seeking to impose a totalitarian single party state upon the Soviet Union. In that context, she wrote the infamous dictum "Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" ("Freedom is always the freedom of the one who thinks differently.") Luxemburg and Liebknecht were freed from prison in November 1918. On 1st January 1919 the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was founded under the leadership of Liebknecht and Luxemburg. Shortly afterwards, they were both leading the Spartacist uprising (German: Spartakusaufstand), also known as the January uprising (Januaraufstand), an armed uprising that took place in Berlin from 5 to 12 January 1919. Around 150 members of the uprising died, the most prominent being Liebknecht and Luxemburg, who were arrested, tortured and shot on January 15th. Her body was dumped in the Landwehr canal. Despite her criticism of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, she swiftly became a Soviet martyr. Lenin executed four Grand Dukes in retaliation. 18×12.5 cm 71 pages. . Seller Inventory # 4425

Bibliographic Details

Title: Letters from prison. The letters included in...

Publisher: St Petersburg State publishing house 1921

Edition: 1st Edition