Spoken: October 3 & 4, 1898 Source: Selected Political Writings Rosa Luxemburg, 1971, edited by Dick Howard, text from the German Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, II (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1951), 28-33. Translated: (from the German) John Heckman. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins. Copyright: Monthly Review Press © 1971. Printed with the permission of Monthly Review Press. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
This is the text of two speeches made to the Stuttgart Congress of the German Social Democratic Party in 1898, in the discussion on tactics.
Speech of October 3, 1898
The speeches of Heine and others have shown that an extremely important point has been obscured in our Party, namely that... (From: Marxists.org.) Spoken: October 11, 1899 Source: German: Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, II (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1951), pp.78-86; English: Selected Political Writings Rosa Luxemburg, 1971, edited by Dick Howard. Translated: (from the German) John Heckman Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins Proofed: by Matthew Grant Copyright: Monthly Review Press © 1971. Printed with the permission of Monthly Review. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
Comrades, it would be like carrying water to the sea if I were to address myself to the theoretical side of the problem after Comrade Bebel’s excellent presentation. Bebel handled these questions so thoroughly and brought so many new facts to bear against Bernstein that it woul... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: 1903. Source: Karl Marx: Man, Thinker and Revolutionist, edited by D. Ryazanov. Publisher: International Publishers, New York, 1927. Translated from German: Eden and Cedar Paul. Republished: New International, Vol. VI No. 7 (Whole No. 47), August 1940. pp. 143–144. Transcription/Markup: Dario Romeo and Brian Baggins. Proofread: Einde O’Callaghan (July 2013). Online Version: Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
In his shallow but at time interesting causerie entitled Die soziale Bewegung in Frankreich und Belgien (The Socialist Movement in France and Belgium), Karl Grün remarks, aptly enough, that Fourier’s and Saint-Simon’s theories had very different effects upon their respective ad... (From: Marxists.org.) What actually remains of Comrade Kautsky’s mass strike theory, after he has pointed out all the “impossibilities”? The one, “final,” pure political mass strike, disengaged from economic strikes: which once only, but with absolute conclusiveness, smashes down like thunder out of the clear blue sky. Says Comrade Kautsky:
Here, in this conception, lies the deepest ground of the differences between my friends and me over the mass strike. They anticipate a period of mass strikes. Under the existing conditions in Germany, I can imagine a political mass strike only as a one-time event into which the entire proletariat of the Reich enters with its entire strength; as a struggle to the death; as a struggle which eith... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: Late 1915. Source: Fourth International (Amsterdam), No. 8, Winter 1959/60, pp. 20–21. Transcription/Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive. Online Version: Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2000.
A large number of comrades from different parts of Germany [1] have adopted the following theses, which constitute an application of the Erfurt program to the contemporary problems of international socialism.
1. The world war has annihilated the work of 40 years of European socialism: by destroying the revolutionary proletariat as a political force; by destroying the moral prestige of socialism; by scattering the workers’ International; by setting its Sections one against ... (From: Marxists.org.) Source: Le Socialiste, May 5-12, 1901; Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor.
Dear Comrades:
May First is, above all, a review of the international forces of socialism, of their progress, of their forms. How different is the situation of the workers’ battalions today from what it was twelve years ago at the time of the celebration of this day!
But what about the internal crisis that we are going through more or less everywhere? What about the doubts, the skepticism, the deviations in our ranks? Well, these too are nothing but a symptom of our growth.
In the last ten years, on the heels of the definitive collapse of bourgeois democracy, new layers of society have little by little passed over to us in their entirety,... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: September 28, 1911. First Published/Source: Justice, 7th October 1911, p.7. Justice was the journal of the British Marxist group, the Social Democratic Federation, later the BSP. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyleft: Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
September 28, 1911 To the Unity Conference of the Socialist Organizations in Manchester
Dear Comrades, – It is with very great pleasure that we have received the intimation of your Unity Conference, and send you our best wishes for the success of your deliberations. In common with the organized Socialist Proletariat of the World, we also regard the unification of the real Soc... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Die Neue Zeit, October 24, 1907 (vol.1, no.4). Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyright: Random House © 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
The new wage agreement of the printers’ union outwardly appears not to be connected in any way with the deliberations of the Mannheim Party Conference, but following upon its heels it can be seen as a drastic commentary on it. The printers’ trade union has long been regar... (From: Marxists.org.) Written: 1894. First published in Polish in Sprawa Robotnicza. Published: From Selected Political Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, tr. Dick Howard, Monthly Review Press, 1971, pp. 315-16. Online Version: marxists.org April, 2002. Transcribed: http://www.ultrared.org/lm mayday.html. Proofed: by Matthew Grant.
The happy idea of using a proletarian holiday celebration as a means to attain the eight-hour day was first born in Australia. The workers there decided in 1856 to organize a day of complete stoppage together with meetings and entertainment as a demonstration in favor of the eight-hour day. The day of this celebration was to be April 21. At first, the Australian workers intended this only for the year 1856. But this first celebration had... (From: Marxists.org.) First Published: Die Gleichheit, February 5th, 1912. Source: Rosa Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings, edited and introduced by Robert Looker. Translated: (from the German) W.D. Graf. Transcription/Markup: Ted Crawford/Brian Baggins with special thanks to Robert Looker for help with permissions. Copyright: Random House, 1972, ISBN/ISSN: 0224005960. Printed with the permission of Random House. Luxemburg Internet Archive (marxists.org) 2004.
I: THE NEW SITUATION
For almost two years the activities of the Social-Democratic Party were geared mainly to the Reichstag elections. The great event is now behind us, and we can review the overall situation. Have the Reichstag elections created a completely new situation which holds new politi... (From: Marxists.org.) Speech: May 12, 1912 (at the Second Social Democratic Women’s Rally, Stuttgart, Germany). Source: Selected Political Writings, Rosa Luxemburg. Edited and introduced by Dick Howard. Monthly Review Press © 1971. Translated: Rosmarie Waldrop (from the German Ausgewählte Reden und Schriften, 2 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1951, pp.433-41). Transcription/Markup: Brian Baggins. Copyright: Monthly Review Press © 1971. Published here by the Marxists Internet Archive (marxists.org, 2003) with permission from Monthly Review Press.
“Why are there no organizations for working women in Germany? Why do we hear so little about the working women’s movement?” With these questions, Emma Ihrer, one of the founders of the p... (From: Marxists.org.)