Socialist Martyr: Rosa Luxemburg and the Failed Spartacist Uprising in Germany, 1918-1919.

As the First World War was coming to an end, the German monarchy was collapsing. Various factions and members of the German Reichstag were scrambling to replace the recently abdicated Kaiser and restore some amount of order to the German state. In the following weeks, the Socialist Democratic Party (SPD) would gradually consolidate its grip on power and form a new government. Months later a general strike was declared in Berlin and hundreds of thousands of workers flooded the streets. Rosa Luxemburg and other prominent members of the Spartacists--far left defectors from the SPD--were initially... Mehr ...