Rosa Luxemburg's corruscating politics texts on the 1905 Revolution This collection is the first of three volumes of the Complete Works devoted to the central theme of Rosa Luxemburg’s life and work—revolution. Spanning the years 1897 to the end of 1905, they contain speeches, articles, and essays on the strikes, protests, and political debates that culminated in the 1905 Russian Revolution—one of the most important social upheavals of modern times. Luxemburg’s near-daily articles and reports during 1905 on the ongoing revolution (which comprises the bulk of this volume) shed new light on such issues as the relation of spontaneity and organization, the role of national minorities in social revolution, and the inseparability of the struggle for socialism from revolutionary democracy. We become witness to Luxemburg’s effort to respond to the impulses, challenges, and ideas arising from a living revolutionary process, which in turn becomes the source of much of her subsequent political theory—such as her writings on the mass strike, her strident internationalism, and her insistence that revolutionary struggle never take its eyes off of the need to transform the human personality. Virtually all of these writings appear in English for the first time (translated from both German and Polish) and many have only recently been identified as having been written by Luxemburg.

This book analyses the development of Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) as an outstanding Marxist thinker and socialist politician in the era of imperialism and revolution. Identifying the driving force behind Luxemburg’s development as the deep unity between her passionate, emphatic life and her political and theoretical work, the authors retrace the inner dynamics of its different stages while highlighting the deep rupture caused by the experience of the Russian Revolution. On the basis of new publications of her Polish works and other writings, Luxemburg's strategic approaches are located in an Eastern European context. The authors discuss Luxemburg’s unique analyses of the first experiments in socialist participation in government, of the first Russian revolution and of the forms of accumulation of capital to outline the foundations of her novel understanding of both democratic-socialist revolution and of a society that would point beyond social democracy as well as Bolshevism – a vision that will gain new significance in the twenty first century. This book looks upon the lasting heritage of Rosa Luxemburg as the groundbreaking thinker of the unity between democracy and socialism.

"The third volume ... is devoted to the central theme of Rosa Luxemburg's life and work -- revolution. Spanning the years 1897 to the end of 1905, it contains speeches, articles, and essays on the strikes, protests, and political debates that culminated in the 1905 Russian Revolution, one of the most important social upheavals of modern times"--Back cover.

"Basso has concentrated on those sections of her work which he feels to be the most relevant today-- her views on imperialism, on revolutionar strategy and tactics, on the relationship between the party and the masses, and on the interaction of socialist and nationalist independence movements."--Dust jackets.

Om Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919)

Among the major Marxist thinkers of the Russian Revolution era, Rosa Luxemburg stands out as one who speaks to our own time. Her legacy grows in relevance as the global character of the capitalist market becomes more apparent and the critique of bureaucratic power is more widely accepted within the movement for human liberation. The Rosa Luxemburg Reader is the definitive one-volume collection of Luxemburg's writings in English translation. Unlike previous publications of her work from the early 1970s, this volume includes substantial extracts from her major economic writings—above all, The Accumulation of Capital (1913)—and from her political writings, including Reform or Revolution (1898), the Junius Pamphlet (1916), and The Russian Revolution (1918). The Reader also includes a number of important texts that have never before been published in English translation, including substantial extracts from her Introduction to Political Economy (1916), and a recently-discovered piece on slavery. With a substantial introduction assessing Luxemburg's work in the light of recent research, The Rosa Luxemburg Reader is an indispensable resource for scholarship and an inspiration for a new generation of activists.