Rosa Luxemburg essays

Rosa Luxemburg essays Rosa Luxemburg was arguably one of the finest political theorists of the 20th century. Luxemburg was a German revolutionary leader, journalist, and socialist theorist. She lived the international life of a Socialist pilgrim, believing that only socialism could bring true freedom and social justice. Luxemburg was the advocate of mass action, spontaneity, and workers democracy but her criticism of the revisionist position of Edward Bernstein is considered her most important legacy to European political thought. Rosa Luxemburg was born into a middle class, Jewish family on March 5, 1871, in the small town of Zamosc in southeastern Russian Poland in the year of the Paris commune. She was the youngest out of five children, three boys and two girls. Her father lacked the knack for business. When his fortunes declined and his familys needs grew he decided to try his luck in the capital. When Rosa was two and a half years old her family moved to Warsaw, where she grew up (Waters 1). At the age of five she developed a serious hip ailment, and had to spend nearly a year in bed. While bedridden for that year she taught herself to read. The disease was wrongly diagnosed as tuberculosis and wrongly treated. She never fully recovered from the disease and walked with a slight limp for the rest of her life (Waters 1). At the age of thirteen, Rosa entered the second girls high school in Warsaw. She graduated on June 14,1887 with an excellent academic record. She was supposed to have received a gold metal that she had earned for academic achievements, but was denied because of her rebellious attitude towards the authorities (Feminist). At sixteen she found her soul mates in the social-minded students in the underground circles. She became active in the underground revolutionary movement during her high school years. She joined a small cell of the Proletariat Party, which was allied with the terrorist Narodnik, or Populist, movemen...