The SPD congress debates mass political strikes

At the Paris congress of the Second International she presses socialists to oppose imperialism, militarism and colonial policies. Her intervention links European workers’ politics to colonial...

A German court sentences Luxemburg to prison after her criticism of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The case shows how formal political freedoms coexisted with criminal penalties used to discipline anti-militarist...

In essays on Russian social democracy she contests rigid centralism and argues that working-class political capacity develops through struggle. Her debate with Lenin is often reduced to a personal...

In this intervention she criticizes an overly centralized party model and argues that political organization must remain responsive to workers’ own activity. Later readings debate whether she fairly...

Troops fire on demonstrators in St Petersburg, intensifying a wave of strikes and revolt across the empire. The events transform Luxemburg’s analysis of the mass strike from a theoretical debate...

She enters Russian-ruled Poland despite martial law to take part in socialist agitation and labor organizing. Her decision places her at direct risk and challenges the distance between European...

Tsarist authorities imprison Luxemburg during the revolutionary upheaval; she is later released on bail after family intervention and health concerns. The episode exposes the coercive machinery of...

Drawing on the Russian Revolution of 1905, Luxemburg presents mass strikes as both political weapons and schools of collective self-government. She challenges the view that union leaders or party...

Luxemburg draws on the Russian Revolution to show how economic strikes, political protest and organization can interact. She challenges a neat separation between “spontaneous” workers and party...

The mass-strike debate sets party and union leaders against workers’ initiative. Luxemburg warns that a leadership focused only on protecting existing organizations can leave workers unprepared for...