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The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg
This is the most comprehensive collection of letters by Rosa Luxemburg ever published in English, including 190 letters written to leading figures in the European and international labor and socialist movements––Leo Jogiches, Karl Kautsky, Clara Zetkin and Karl Liebknecht––who were her closest friends, lovers and colleagues. Many of these letters appear for the first time in English translation; all help to illuminate the inner life of this iconic revolutionary, who was at once an economic and social theorist, a political activist and a lyrical stylist. Her political concerns are revealed alongside her personal struggles within a socialist movement that was often hostile to independently minded women. This collection will provide readers with a newer and deeper appreciation of Luxemburg as a writer and historical figure.
Hardback, 656 pages
ISBN: 9781844674534
February 2011
$39.95 / £25.99 / $50.00CAN
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Part of the The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg series
Reviews
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One cannot read the writings of Rosa Luxemburg, even at this distance, without an acute yet mournful awareness of what Perry Anderson once termed 'the history of possibility.'
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She emerges as one of the most emotionally intelligent socialists in modern history, a radical of luminous dimension whose intellect is informed by sensibility, and whose largeness of spirit places her in the company of the truly impressive.
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[W]onderful ... The self-portrait in these pages is that of a professional revolutionary whose vocation is, if you'll pardon the expression, spiritual. Reading ... this book, I could not help falling in love with you, dear Rosa.
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George Shriver's new translation of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg is the most comprehensive collection of her correspondence yet to appear in English. It transports us directly into the private world of a woman who has never lost her inspirational power as an original thinker and courageous activist … [and] reveals that the woman behind the mythic figure was also a compassionate, teasing, witty human being.
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Paced almost like a novel, the 28 years covered by this collection pass by almost too quickly.
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The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg come as near as anything to the way this extraordinary woman talked with loved ones and friend ... a wonderfully compelling record, both poignant and timely.
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[Rosa] Luxemburg expressed unfailing passion in her letters ... This volume gives personal insight into a remarkable (and controversial) woman and adds meaningful context to any study of early Western socialism.
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Useful and exciting.
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Fascinating ... these passionate letters, which commemorate the 140th anniversary of Luxemburg’s birth, show the living, breathing and loving woman behind the legend of 'Red Rosa.'
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[Rosa Luxemburg's] letters, with all their exquisite details, read as well as any novel ... Personal or political [they] are beautiful, powerful, and succinct.
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The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg is a ... kind of memorial, a kind of sliver of one woman’s life bound together in one place ... Rosa Luxemburg comes alive in these pages ... if you love or admire or are just fascinated by [her], then you’ve no excuse not to buy this excellent book.
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This English-language edition of selected letters of Polish-born Marxist thinker and founder of the German Communist Party, Rosa Luxemburg, who was assassinated in 1919, is the most comprehensive published in English, with over two-thirds of the letters translated here for the first time.
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The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg includes everything from Luxemberg’s youthful mash notes to her theoretical arguments, as well as her uncanny prediction of 'pogroms against Jews in Germany.'
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A welcome contribution to a renewed interest in this key figure of the Marxist tradition.
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Verso is once again to be congratulated for this publishing inititiative, in an excellent translation by George Shriver ... [The letters] give a unique insight into her character, her deep humanity as well as her passionate commitment to the struggle for socialism.
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Rosa goes on being our source of fresh water in thirsty times.
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Intrepid, incorruptible, passionate and gentle. Imagine as you read between the lines of what she wrote, the expression of her eyes. She loved workers and birds. She danced with a limp. Everything about her fascinates and rings true. One of the immortals.
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This huge project is long overdue. Luxemburg's correspondence reveals an extraordinary range and breadth of concerns and interests
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[Luxemburg's letters] are extremely well written, elegant in their use of language as well as exciting in their expression of ideas. The letters within this thick volume show indeed how much we have lost our ability to communicate with the decline of letter-writing ... taking the time to actually correspond (as Luxemburg did throughout her life), to actually compose a letter, produces art as well as communication. And that is at the heart of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, that is precisely what makes this book so absorbing and so pleasurable to read.
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Provides valuable insights into the personal development of this great revolutionary.
Blog
"The indomitable thirst for social justice:" Vladislav Davidzon reviews The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg for Rain Taxi Review of Books
Over at the Rain Taxi Review of Books, Vladislav Davidzon has written an excellent review of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, providing a valuable historical overview and evaluation of her frequently overlooked importance—in the Anglo-American world, at least—to the political struggles and development of socialist thought in the early 20th century. Davidzon's review delves both into her extraordinary life as well as into the world-changing historical events that influenced it and which are mirrored afresh through her correspondence and most personal insights. He writes,
A thinker for tumultuous times: Peter Hudis on Rosa Luxemburg's legacy
Against the Grain, the alternative radio and web-media project based out of Berkeley, California has recently included in their podcast series a lengthy interview with Peter Hudis, editor of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, published by Verso in February 2011. Hudis spoke to Against the Grain about Luxemburg's legacy and her role in the history and evolution of both Marxist theory and practice.
"The most brilliant Marxist intellectual"— Christopher Hitchens reviews The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg
Christopher Hitchens is a divisive figure for many on the Left. But despite some of his politically problematic positions, his knowledge of the Marxist canon—Trotsky's thought in particular— is a welcome antidote to those public intellectuals who wholly dismiss Marxism as an unwelcome chapter in the triumphant narrative of democratic liberalism. Hitchens refers to precisely this intellectual repudiation in his review of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg in the Atlantic. The generally accepted verdict on twentieth century ideology, he writes, is "that its 'totalitarian' character eclipses any of the ostensible differences between its 'left' and 'right' versions." Scholars who castigate Marxism without scrutinizing the serious variances and debates within it risk severely limiting their knowledge of modern history. In this milieu, one figure who has earned and deserves public attention is Rosa Luxemburg, who, for Hitchens is
... the most brilliant-and the most engaging-of these Marxist intellectuals was Rosa Luxemburg, the Polish-born Jew who was the most charismatic figure in the German Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Discussions
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The rest of the series
Hello, when are the other thirteen volumes of this series expected to be published and what will their contents be?
Other books by Rosa Luxemburg, Annelies Laschitza, Georg Adler, and Peter Hudis
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The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg
First volume of a major project to publish the complete works of a remarkable social theorist