Rosa Luxemburg

A classic book on the legacy of Rosa Luxemburg’s work with essays of political analysis by leading scholars

he inspirational power of Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) remains as important today as it was in her lifetime. An uncompromising, original thinker and revolutionary activist, Luxemburg’s efforts to develop an emancipatory version of Marxism through her involvement with Polish, Russian and German Social Democratic parties and then the Spartacist League ensured her position as an influential force, yet resulted in her brutal murder during the January 1919 uprising in Berlin.

J. P. Nettl’s biography was first published half a century ago and remains the most detailed and comprehensive study of Rosa Luxemburg to date. His extensive knowledge of the social and political context of the European socialist movements in which she was active, and his engagement with her voluminous writings in German, Polish, and Russian (many of which are only now being translated into English), brings to light the multidimensional nature of her life and work. This new edition will enable a new generation to explore Luxemburg’s political and activist work, as well as grasp the unique personality of this remarkable woman, theoretician and revolutionary.

John Peter Nettl (1926- 68) was born in Vienna, but lived in England from 1936. After serving with British army intelligence during the Second World War, he studied at Oxford. He died in a plane crash in the United States in 1968. His other books include The Eastern Zone and Soviet policy in Germany, 1945-50 (1951), The Soviet Achievement (1967), Political Mobilization: A Sociological Analysis of Methods and Concepts (1967).