Rosa Luxemburg Quotes

"I'm not satisfied with the way in which people in the party usually write
articles. They are all so conventional, so wooden, so cut-and-dry....
Our scribblings are usually not lyrics, but whirrings, without color or
resonance, like the tone of an engine wheel. I believe that the cause lies
in the fact that when people write, they forget for the most part to dig
deeply into themselves and to feel the whole import and truth of what
they are writing. I believe that ever time, every day, in every article you
must live through the thing again, you must feel your way tugh it,
and then fresh words-coming fom: the heart and going to the heartwould occur to express the old fmiliar thing. But you get so used to a
truth that you rattle off the deepest and greatest tings as if they were
the "Our Fater" I firmly intend, when I write, never to forget to be enthusiastic about what I write and to commune with myself."

If the proletariat came to power, it could draw from Bernstein's theory the following 'practical' conclusion: to go to sleep.

I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.

"As long as theoretic knowledge remains the privilege of a handful of "academicians" in the Party, the latter will face the danger of going astray."

what is the actual role of Anarchism in the Russian revolution? It has become the sign of the common thief and plunderer; a large proportion of the innumerable thefts and acts of plunder of private persons are carried out under the name of 'Anarchist-Communism' - acts which rise up like a troubled wave against the revolution in every period of depression and in every period of temporary defensive. Anarchism has become in the Russian revolution, not the theory of the struggling proletariat, but the ideological sign-board of the counter-revolutionary lumpenproletariat, who, like a school of sharks, swarm in the wake of the battleship of the revolution. And therewith the historical career of Anarchism is well-nigh ended.

"The solemn stillness of the morning hour lay over the pavement; above in the window panes the early gold of the young sun glistened, and high above swam little roseate clouds which then dissolved into the grey city sky. At that time, as a child, I firmly believed that "life", "real" life, was somewhere far away, beyond the roofs. Since then I have been travelling after it."

I feel, in a word, the need as [Wladyslaw] Heine would say, to “say something great” … I feel that within me there is maturing a completely new and original form which dispenses with the usual formulas and patterns and breaks them down … I feel with utter certainty that something is there, that something will be born.*

Freiheit, ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden

Fourier's scheme of changing, by means of phalansteries, the water of all the seas into tasty lemonade was surely a phantastic idea. But Bernstein, proposing to change the sea of capitalist bitterness into a sea of socialist sweetness, by progressively pouring into it bottles of social reformist lemonade, presents an idea that is merely more insipid but no less phantastic.

Who does not move, does not feel his chains.

Wer sich nicht bewegt, der spürt seine Fesseln nicht.

The ultra-centralism asked by Lenin is full of the sterile spirit of the overseer. It is not a positive and creative spirit. Lenin's concern is not so much to make the activity of the party more fruitful as to control the party — to narrow the movement rather than to develop it, to bind rather than to unify it. . . . What is today only a phantom haunting Lenin's imagination may become reality tomorrow.

Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.

But here is the "ego" of the Russian revolutionary again! Pirouetting on its head, it once more proclaims itself to be the all-powerful director of history — this time with the title of His Excellency the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Russia.

If we assume the viewpoint claimed as his own by Lenin and we fear the influence of intellectuals in the proletarian movement, we can conceive of no greater danger to the Russian party than Lenin's plan of organization. Nothing will more surely enslave a young labor movement to an intellectual elite hungry for power than this bureaucratic straightjacket, which will immobilize the movement and turn it into an automaton manipulated by a Central Committee. On the other hand there is no more effective guarantee against opportunist intrigue and personal ambition than the independent revolutionary action of the proletariat, as a result of which the workers acquire the sense of political responsibility and self-reliance.

In the present situation, such an experiment would be doubly dangerous to the Russian Social Democracy. It stands on the eve of decisive battles against tsarism. It is about to enter, or has already entered, on a period of intensified creative activity, during which it will broaden (as is usual in a revolutionary period) its sphere of influence and will advance spontaneously by leaps and bounds. To attempt to bind the initiative of the party at this moment, to surround it with a network of barbed wire, is to render it incapable of accomplishing the tremendous task of the hour.