The hypocrisy of Rosa Luxemburg

When I was looking at Berlin January 1919, I had some commentary on Karl Liebknecht but nothing about Rozalia "Rosa" Luxemburg. The Jewish Tablet is touting her as the democratic Left's first prophet. Unlikely heroine, I thought to myself, having read the book not even a month ago.

A parallel hard-Left politico dealing with the revolutionary aftermath was Kurt Eisner up in Bavaria. Here was a difference: Eisner walked the talk. He declared his own coup to be an interim government and submitted his (radical) programme to the Bavarian masses. I don't know if Eisner had read Luxemburg's book The Russian Revolution, before it got published. But apparently Luxembourg hadn't: she just bloody went for it.

She and Liebknecht broke their Spartakist rump from their fellow Socialists precisely over democracy and, soon enough, tactics. In their rag Die Rote Fahne "Workers' councils" should rule, workers being the point of the Arbeiter revolution. The Berliner KPD might not have declared its Aktion a "soviet", as Munich would, but I see no difference in German translation.

It's a fine question to ask of today's "antifa". Once you've started plotting to take over buildings, or even... not to tell your supporters to renounce that tactic: what's the endgame? Fine, you've got yourself a television station and some precincts. What are you going to do with them? Are you declaring yourself the Monopoly On Force?

If your city is already wearing the armband for socialism then why even form a second Marxian group? Where's the space between democratic socialism and Lenino-cratic?

I pulled Gerwarth off the shelf to see if I was imagining anything and p. 156 translates Die Rote Fahne 8 January - Do not talk! Do not discuss things forever! Do not negotiate! Act! She blamed the lessons of the last three days. When push comes to shove, she might as well have said. Except that, against Ebert, she'd recommended the first push. Apparently she'd written the manuscript for The Russian Revolution in stir and then immediately jumped at the chance for power when offered, after that (pp. 143-4). That would explain why she didn't publish.

Rosa Luxemburg instead should have re-read her own book and attached herself to Ebert's democrats. She'd have saved herself and her friends.