Educated at Warsaw, Zurich and Paris, where she received her PhD in economics and law in 1897, Luxemburg was involved in political protest while still a student. She moved to Berlin in 1898 and quickly became involved in the revolutionary movement. She became a German citizen through marriage and contributed articles and essays to many German journals and periodicals. She was a strong opponent of imperialism and militarism in Germany and her outspoken position led to her arrest and imprisonment on numerous occasions. In 1900, she published, Reform or Revolution, a defence of Marxism, which was subsequently updated and re-issued in 1908. She participated in the Russian Poland uprising of 1905 and was arrested in Warsaw in 1906. Returning to Germany after her release, she began teaching at the Social Democratic Party school in Berlin. In 1912, she published The Accumulation of Capital. In 1916, together with Karl Leibnecht, she founded the radical Spartacus League, which became the German Communist Party in 1918. Vehemently against the First World War, Luxemburg was arrested a number of times and spent most of the war in prison. She was finally arrested with Leibnecht in January 1919, and both were murdered by German Freikorps troops on the way to prison. Her body was thrown in to the Landwehr canal and not found until May. Luxemburg was a prolific writer who produced literally hundreds of articles, essays and pamphlets during her short life. Among her other well-known works are The Industrial Development of Poland (1898), The National Question (1908), The Socialdemocratic Crisis (1916), The Russian Revolution (Posth. 1922) and What is Economics? (Posth. 1925). |
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