Introduction to Rosa Luxemburg's Pamphlet the Russian Revolution
Introduction to Rosa Luxemburg’s Pamphlet The Russian Revolution Preface I believe that I am right, in every respect, to publish this pamphlet. Its origins are as follows. In summer , Rosa Luxemburg sent the Spartakusbriefe arti- cles from her prison in Breslau, in which she took critical issue with the policies of the Bolsheviks. This was the period after Brest-Litovsk, the time of the Zusatzverträge.1 Her friends saw their publication as inopportune at that time, and I agreed with them. Since Rosa Luxemburg stubbornly insisted on their publication, I travelled to see her in Breslau in Sep- tember , where, after long and detailed discus- sion in the prison, though I did not convince her, she agreed to refrain from publishing a recently written article against Bolshevik tactics. In order to convince me of the correctness of her criticism, Rosa Luxemburg wrote the following pamphlet. She informed me of the broad lines of its content from prison by way of a trusted woman- friend,2 remarking that she was busily at work writ- ing a detailed critique of what had happened in Russia. ‘I am writing this pamphlet for you,’ Rosa 1. [The Zusatzverträge [supplementary treaties] that the Soviet government was compelled to sign on August recognised effective German suzerainty over Finland, Ukraine and Georgia. The collapse of the German army less than two months later put paid to these treaties.] 2. [Mathilde Jacob.] Introduction to ‘The Russian Revolution’ • Luxemburg added, ‘and if I convince only you, I shall not have done this work in vain.’ As material for the pamphlet, she used not only German news- papers, but all the Russian newspapers and pamphlets that had reached Ger- many through the Russian embassy, and that trusted friends had smuggled in to her in prison.
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