Remembering Rosa and Karl 100 years on

Actually, the 'far right thugs' she was murdered by were the social democrats under Friedrich Ebert.

Had the Sparticists, with their independent outlook on revolutionary socialism, prevailed in 1919, it is likely that neither Hitler nor Stalin would ever have come to power, and it is also much more likely that the international Communist movement would never have degenerated into the pathetic cult of "Uncle Joe" that it had reduced itself to by the early Thirties.

And I'd go even further than that and argue that, had Rosa Luxemburg's version of "spontaneous" revolution succeeded in Germany, the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world, neither Russia nor China would be under the cynical, repressive, and essentially right-wing dictatorships they live under today.  

Rosa Luxemburg’s Birds

In Berlin, one morning in April 1916, Sophie and Karl Liebknecht received a telephone call from Rosa Luxemburg. On this occasion, the call was not about their shared politics – opposition to the First World War, as internationalists and revolutionary socialists. What Rosa had to tell them was that a nightingale was singing in the botanic gardens. The three of them made an excursion to listen to it.[1]

At that time of year, the nightingale would have just completed its spring migration, returning from an Africa carved up, subjugated and ruthlessly exploited by European powers, to a Europe where the slaughter and devastation of world war were unleashed.

Rosa Luxemburg was passionate about many things, among them, the natural world and especially bird life. For her, this was inseparable from her passion for human liberation. She wrote:

“I feel at home in the entire world, wherever there are clouds and birds and human tears…”[2]

Her studies at the University of Zurich included botany, zoology and geology, though later she switched to politics and economics. Later on, while devoting herself to socialist politics, she kept an herbarium, a collection of plants, dried, mounted and annotated.[3]

It was in her letters from prison that Luxemburg wrote about birds – in particular, those written in the period from October 1916 to July 1917, when she was held at the fortress of Wronke (now Wronki in Poland). At Wronke, she was allowed freedom of movement within the fortress grounds during daylight hours. There was a garden where she could observe the local bird and insect life and watch the clouds drifting overhead.

Her letters were written for personal friends and comrades, but in the knowledge that they would be monitored by the prison officers. One can only speculate whether she thought they would one day become part of her legacy. Through her responses to birds and the natural world, as well as to novels, poetry, drama, music and other topics, she expressed her own inner thoughts and emotions, creating an intimate self-portrait.

Like most birders today, Luxemburg was thrilled to see a species for the first time. On the outing to hear the nightingale in the botanic gardens, she was intrigued by the strange call of an unidentified bird. A year later, at Wronke, she was able to identify it:

“Just imagine that a few days ago, early in the morning, I suddenly heard the same sound here, nearby. My heart pounded with impatience finally to learn what it could be. I had no peace until I found out today: it is not an aquatic bird, but rather a wryneck, a kind of grey woodpecker. It is only a little bigger than a sparrow, and it takes its name from the fact that, when in danger, it attempts to frighten its enemies through comical gestures and contortions of its head. It lives only on ants with its sticky tongue like the anteater. That’s why the Spaniards call it Hormiguero – the ant-bird”.[4]

Next day, she wrote:

“Today I saw for the first time in my life a splendid bird: the yellowhammer. I sat so quiet and motionless that it hopped over quite close and I was able to observe it in exact detail.”[5]

Mostly, though, she wrote about the common, familiar birds that were her regular companions in the grounds of the fortress, such as great tits, blue tits and chaffinches, describing them for her friends in lively sketches. She did not simply observe them. She interacted with them in various ways. Not surprisingly, she fed them. She sang to them, spoke to them, mimicked their calls.

“The great tits are in loyal attendance in front of my window, they already know my voice exactly, and it seems that they like it when I sing. Recently I sang the Countess’s aria from Figaro, about six of them were perched on a bush in front of the window and listened without moving all the way to the end; it was a very funny sight to see.”[6]

Modern studies of bird behaviour confirm that birds do sometimes respond to human music. There is even one unique case of a tame bird, a cockatoo named Snowball, who breaks into his own dance moves when music is played.[7] Of course, it is also possible that the great tits were simply waiting to be fed.

The intensity of Rosa Luxemburg’s feelings towards birds must be partly due to her situation as a prisoner, separated from her friends and cut off from her political activities, all in the midst of a war she abhorred. In one of her letters, she quotes some heroic lines of poetry, suggests that she would like part of it written on her gravestone, then in a quick change of mood:

“Did you take that seriously, Mathilde? Hey, laugh at it. On my grave, as in my life, there will be no pompous phrases. Only two syllables will be allowed to appear on my gravestone: ‘Tsvee-tsvee’. That is the call made by the great tit, which I can imitate so well that they all immediately come running. And just think, in this call, which is usually quite clear and thin, sparkling like a steel needle, in the last few days there has been quite a low little trill, a tiny chesty sound. And do you know what that means, Miss Jacob? That is the first soft stirring of the coming spring. In spite of the snow and frost and loneliness, we believe – the titmice and I – in the coming of spring! And if in impatience I don’t live through it, then don’t forget that on my gravestone nothing is to appear except that ‘Tsvee-tsvee’…
I embrace you and Mimi with terrible longing, Your R.L.”[8]

Mimi was Rosa Luxemburg’s cat. Mathilde Jacob, secretary, comrade and friend of Rosa Luxemburg, was to die in Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1943.[9].....

..great idea laine.

..amongst many other things..i would have loved to watch/hear rosa singing to those 6 birds perched on a bush. i went and found the song she sang which i'll share here.

The Countess's aria from The Marriage of Figaro

NDPP wrote:

"The University of Florida removed the name of Karl Marx from one of its study rooms. The decision was influenced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

https://twitter.com/incontextmedia/status/1506223646674665477

[North] American insanity.

True- and thanks for admitting that Vladimir Putin, a right-wing neo-Tsarist, has nothing whatsoever in common with Marxism and that nothing he does or says can ever have any left-of-centre, let alone revolutionary implications- just as nothing Lenin did after he crushed Krondstadt and nothing Stalin ever did was in any way Marxist or socialist.

BTW, this isn't a thread about Ukraine, it's about Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, neither of them would have defended Stalinism or Maoism had they lived to see either, both of whom recognized that dictatorial tactics were completely alien to the spirit of radical socialist transformation.