GER 150 Podcast - Frauism - Ep 3 - Rosa Luxembourg

Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary feminist in Germany during the Wilhelmin era. She was born in 1871 and fought against oppression from a young age. Luxemburg developed strong feminist ideas aligned with Marxism and joined the German Socialist Democratic Labor Party in 1898. She advocated for the mass strike theory as a revolutionary weapon. Luxemburg was against German aggression and was released from prison in 1918. She founded the German Communist Party and was killed by the German military in 1919. Luxemburg believed in women advocating for themselves and criticized the government's treatment of different social classes. Her theories focused on economic and class issues rather than race. She played a significant role in developing feminist ideologies and her legacy is still important today. Hello and welcome to episode 3 of Frauism. Today we will be discussing the revolutionary feminist Rosa Luxemburg as well as diving into a little bit of the feminist scene in Germany during the Wilhelmin era which lasted from 1890 to 1918. Rosa Luxemburg was born in 1871 in a small Polish town that was at the time under the Russian Empire. Her story is built from one of resilience and fighting oppression. From a young age Luxemburg was in the forefront of advocacy movements often her passions aligning with the political agitation. By the age of 18 she left Poland for Switzerland to avoid being in trouble with the law and began her studies in politics, economics and law pursuing a doctoral degree. After receiving her doctorate she spent many years developing and producing strong feminist ideas along the lines of the Marxist socialist viewpoint. She eventually joined the German Socialist Democratic Labor Party in 1898. From this participation in the political scene she was able to become more public with her beliefs and movements. Starting in the early 1900s Luxemburg really began to develop her theories specifically the mass strike theory. In 1906 Luxemburg began to strongly advocate for her mass strike theory as a part of the important revolutionary weapon against the proletariat. This continual drive became a major point of contention in the German Social Democratic Party. With the beginning of World War I Luxemburg stood ardently against the German Social Democratic Party's social chauvinistic stance supporting German aggression and annexations of other nations. In 1918 Luxemburg was released from German prison. She began again with revolutionary agitation. Luxemburg founded the German Communist Party while armed conflicts were raging in the streets of Berlin to support the Spartacus League. Luxemburg was killed by the German military on January 15, 1919. So going back to her theory. So as a political theorist Luxemburg began to develop a humanitarian theory on Marxism. Luxemburg advocated the mass strike as a single most important tool of the proletariat. Luxemburg advocated the mass strike as a single most important tool of the proletariat. So as for things she advocated for, Luxemburg talked about the power and importance of women advocating for themselves and how it affected the political scene. She said that without women the Socialist Party in Germany would not have been powerful at all. She believed that women were too influential in politics and society to not have the right to vote, almost as if it were common sense. She advocated for an organization of working women independent of the bourgeoisie in order to focus on their own needs. To add to this Luxemburg was anti-war, anti-colonialism, anti-militarism, and anti-imperialism. She was very economic centered and criticized how the government treated the middle, lower, and working classes. She thought that the government should acknowledge the work done by women and how much it actually affected the economy, even if it provided no monetary gains, such as raising children. So what are your guys' opinions on Rosa Luxemburg? Do you think that she was like a forerunner or do you think she's less important compared to what we've learned so far? I think for the time that she was, she kind of arose like in the things that she, like the person who she was, she was Jewish in the time of anti-Semitism and she was Polish in the time whenever... She was a threat. She was Polish, a woman, and a woman, yeah, so during that time period, very marginalized, very outspoken. Yeah, and the fact that the German military shot her and killed her is important enough in its own. She led the German Communist Party, which is pretty important, along with Karl Liebknecht, I think. Well, that's still a party that exists today, so that's pretty interesting. Yeah, I think her legacy far preceded her time. Exactly, and she's very progressive for her views in that time period as well. Yeah, I think going back to how this movement for women between the 1890s and 1918, she really played a large role in developing a legacy for feminist movement and feminist ideologies. From an economic standpoint, definitely different than, like, bell hooks, who's more like a, like a, not maybe social point of view, social class. For her, it's dealt with more race, this deals with more, like, economic standpoint, social economic class, really organizing women. Not so much, like, including men, well, like, men would be, maybe, in her view, someone that would assist, but I think women are her main target of, like, you can do something about it. Yeah. Which I like her, I think her theory's okay, but I prefer bell hooks theory more, personally. Well, I think that, like, she really, like, plays to the role of people or what moves government, and so, like, if enough people, like, it's, like, the idea of a strike, like, if enough people revolt, then, like, eventually someone in power has to listen. Right. And I think, especially, like, in her positionality, like, as someone who is so marginalized during that time, the only way to gain, like, the political power, political attention that would be needed to, like, cause this movement, like, would have to be, like, a mass revolution of people. Like, in retrospect, that's easy, but at the same time, it's really difficult. It's ironic that, during that time period, it's like, oh, women can have rights, but you can't vote. Yeah. So, it's like, how would we get people to change the government if women can't vote? Yeah. Anything else to add? I also think how it's interesting that she never defined herself as a feminist, like, never said anything about feminism. Well, then, the term was coined by that point. Like, the term feminist wasn't, like, a coined term. It was. It was called, before, I think, she, you know, rose to prominence, there was the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, I think is how you pronounce it, which was the Union of German Feminist Organizations. It had, like, what, like, 130, like, different groups in it? Yeah, by that time. She was, in retrospect, a social feminist, but she never called herself that, and I think it was, you know, the fact that women were so involved in politics that she advocated for them, and the economy, and instead of, like, advocating for women in general, she was advocating for the importance of, like, the role they have already played. I don't know if that's making sense, but. That makes sense. Yeah. It's also to note that during this time period, like, the Industrial Revolution was occurring, so more and more women would be working, probably, like, more factory-type jobs, but definitely during the war, too, and this would also apply to, like, the Americas, but it also is an economic standpoint, that if they are a working woman, they go home, and they just don't have, like, a relationship with their husband or anything like that, it's hard to advocate for yourself at that point, too, as well as only, like, possibly, like, richer, wealthier women would be able to protest or exercise their rights versus, like, working-class women. Right. And it's also to note that, because this is taking place in Germany during this time period, the amount of non-white women would be significantly less, so this was more about class rather than, like, race, when we compare something like bell hooks. Yeah. Anything else? Not for me, no. Okay, well, that was episode three of Frowism, talking about Rosa Luxemburg. Cheers!