Outsiders: Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was one of the greatest Marxist thinkers of the 20th century. She was an economist, a speaker, socialist party leader, and writer on Marxism, the working class, and freedom. She helped found many socialist newspapers, the Polish Social Democratic Party, and the Spartacus League.

Further Reading:

• Rosa Luxemburg 
• The Life of Rosa Luxemburg
• On January 15, 1919: Rosa Luxemburg was murdered

This month we're talking about Outsiders -- women who marched to the beat of their own drum and rejected stereotypes about what women "should" be. They are aesthetic pioneers, norm-benders, and often the only woman in their field.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, Vanessa Handy, Melia Agudelo, and Joia Putnoi. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.

Original theme music by Brittany Martinez.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This month, we're talking about outsiders, women who
march to the beat of their own drum and rejected
stereotypes about what women should be. They're asthetic, pioneers, norm benders,
and often some of the only women in their field.

(00:24):
A woman sits in a prison cell. It's dark and cold,
but there's a fire inside her and it pushes her
to write letters, philosophical treatises, speeches and political pamphlets. She's
perpetually overflowing with revolutionary ideas. They often get her into trouble,
but she invites controversy if it means changing the world.

(00:48):
Today's Womaniquin was an economist, a philosopher, a public speaker,
and a revolutionary. No matter how many times she was
confined behind bars, she never swayed from her commitment to
freedom for workers or the world. Let's talk about Rosa Luxembourg.
Rosa was born on March fifth, eighteen seventy one, in

(01:11):
southeastern Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire at
the time. She was the youngest of five in a
lower middle class Jewish family. When Rosa was a toddler,
her family moved to Warsaw. She fell ill with the
hip disease not long after. Her condition was wrongly diagnosed
and was treated as tuberculosis. Consequently, Rosa developed a lifelong limp.

(01:37):
While in bed recovering, she taught herself how to read
and write. Rosa's family spoke Polish and German in the house,
and Rosa also learned Russian and eventually French. At the
age of thirteen, Rosa was admitted into one of the
elite Russian high schools in Warsaw, an impressive feat considering
there were very few spots for Polish and Jewish students.

(02:00):
During her teen years, Rosa's anti establishment attitude began to blossom.
She openly rejected Russian authority in Poland, attending clandestine and
illegal meetings of the Polish Socialist Party. The group was
not only anti Russian, but also anti bourgeoisie. An anti capitalist,
Rosa became a fully fledged Marxist. She continued to excel

(02:23):
in school, but was denied the gold medal typically given
to top students because of her quote rebellious attitude towards authorities.
In the late eighteen eighties, Rosa helped organize a series
of general strikes, but the Russian government cracked down hard
on these actions, executing four leaders of the Socialist Party
and arresting many more. Due to her involvement in the party,

(02:46):
Rosa was also wanted for arrest, so in eighteen eighty nine,
with the help of a friend, she smuggled herself out
of Warsaw and made the risky journey to Zurich, Switzerland.
When she arrived, she enrolled in the University of Zurich
to study law and politics, eventually earning a doctorate in
eighteen ninety seven. While living and studying in Switzerland, Rosa

(03:09):
attended gatherings with other Marxist expats from Poland. That's how
she met fellow revolutionary Leo Yogish's. Together, they founded a
socialist newspaper, The Worker's Cause, and a new political party,
Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland or SDKP. Their
group opposed the campaign for Polish independence from Russia, arguing

(03:30):
that socialist energies were better spent on an expansive transnational
revolution of the working class. During this period, Rosa and
Lao also became romantically involved. Still in her late teens,
Rosa already demonstrated a rare gift for translating her philosophical
and academic ideas into real political action. When she wasn't

(03:51):
speaking and debating at party meetings, she was writing for
political publications, building out her grand vision for a global
Marxist revolution. In eighteen ninety eight, Rosa moved to Berlin
to be part of the world's largest socialist party at
the time, Germany's SPD. In order to gain citizenship, she

(04:15):
staged a sham marriage to a German friend's son. In Berlin,
Rosa was in community with the biggest players of the
Marxist movement, and she quickly rose through the ranks of
the SPD to become one of those prominent thinkers herself.
When the First Russian Revolution broke out in nineteen oh five,
Rosa smuggled herself back into Poland to aid in the struggle.

(04:37):
She was captured and jailed, the first of several periods
of her life spent behind bars. While in prison, she
wrote extensively on the power of the masses and strikes,
sometimes directly corresponding with famed Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin himself.
The revolution happening outside the prison Walls had captured her imagination,
and she called it an act of world historical sis,

(05:00):
significance whose traces will not be extinguished for eons. Despite
the reputation she earned among her peers as Bloody Rosa
for her support of the violent uprising in Russia, she
was also a woman who could exude extreme empathy. She
once wrote a letter to a friend about watching a
prison guard beat a buffalo hauling a wagon of clothing.

(05:22):
I stood before it, and the beast looked at me.
Tears were running down my face. They were his tears.
When she was finally released from jail, she fled to
Finland to meet Vladimir Lenin in person. They had established
a friendly rapport, even if they disagreed on many philosophical ideas.
During this visit, she also wrote one of her most
influential pamphlets, The Mass Strike, the Party and Trade Unions.

(05:46):
In nineteen oh seven, she returned to Germany and began
teaching at the SPD's Berlin Training Center. Her classes included
introduction to economics and Marx's Capital. In nineteen thirteen, she
published one of her most impressive and noteworthy theoretical pieces,
The Accumulation of capital. The book served to set Rosa
further apart from SPD leadership, who did not share her

(06:07):
critique of German imperialism. Rosa also butted heads with the
SPD on how to handle the rising tensions leading up
to World War One, and argued that a general workers
strike could prevent war. Her anti war stance was not
popular with the SPD and she was iced out of
her own party. Popular socialist publications stopped printing her articles.

(06:31):
On July twenty eighth, nineteen fourteen, world War One officially began.
Rosa was disgusted with the SPD after the majority of
members voted in support of war credits. She had become
an outsider in the party. This galvanized Rosa to start
her own political group, the Spartacus League. The group was
anti war, an anti capitalist, and focused on building an

(06:53):
international alliance of workers. The group printed and distributed pamphlets
and urged Germany's labor unions to strike against the war.
This kind of organizing did not go over well with
the German government, and Roses spent most of the war
behind bars, but imprisonment didn't stop her from writing and
smuggling out her anti war pamphlets. In nineteen sixteen, she

(07:14):
wrote one of her most famous texts, The Crisis of
Social Democracy, also known as the Junius Pamphlet for the
pseudonym she published it under By the time she was
released from prison in nineteen eighteen, the war was over
and the German Empire had fallen. The new Weimar government
was being forged out of the ashes of the war,
and Rosa didn't like how it was. Forming the Spartacus

(07:36):
League with Rosa and her comrades at the Helm organized
the Spartacus Uprising. In January of nineteen nineteen, one hundred
thousand workers protested in Berlin. The Free Corps, a loose
organization of conservative anti communist paramilitary groups, were called in
to violently put down the revolt and killed roughly one

(07:56):
hundred protesters. The bloody demonstration made Rosa even more of
a target of the government. She briefly went into hiding,
but was discovered by the Free Corps on January fifteenth,
nineteen nineteen. She was shot on site and her body
was thrown into a canal. She was found months later
when her body washed ashore. Rosa was forty seven years

(08:19):
old and still at the height of her influence when
she was murdered. A true radical and outsider, she never
compromised her message, even when it meant risking her life.
Her last written words were, Tomorrow the revolution will rise
up again, clashing its weapons, and to your horror, it
will proclaim, with trumpets blazing, I was, I am, I
shall be. All month, we're talking about Outsiders. For more information,

(08:44):
find us on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast special
thanks to Liz Kapplan, my favorite sister and co creator.
Talk to you tomorrow