Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for members of a party - however numerous they may be - is no freedom. Freedom is always only freedom for those who think differently.« At least the second sentence of this quote can be considered generally known. Less well known, however, is the text in which Rosa Luxemburg criticized the Bolsheviks with these words. This is unfortunate, because contrary to what liberals and social democrats claim, this statement is by no means meant as a general rejection of the revolution. Nor is it a misunderstanding that was later corrected, as party communists in both East and West claimed for decades. Rather, Luxemburg's ruthless criticism referred to »fundamental errors in the Lenin-Trotsky theory.« She wrote it in the autumn of 1918 in her prison cell in Breslau, where she was being held in so-called protective custody on the orders of the German High Command. The manuscript On the Russian Revolution, which was only published posthumously under this editorial title, comprises 114 handwritten pages in the original and contains a wealth of sharp notes and profound analytical reflections.

Pull out