Rosa Luxemburg:The Biography

With Rosa Luxemburg J.P. Nettl emerges as one of the outstanding scholars on the history of European socialism. While the 827 pages of the main body of his study are incisively focused on the life of his subject, the many-sided career of this woman challenges her biographer to become an expert in the evolution of Marxist theory, the German, Polish, and Russian socialist movements, and the Second International. Nettl has met this challenge with diligence and force. The extended and generally excellent treatment of intellectual biography in Rosa Luxemburg is accompanied by lively and perceptive personal narrative. One cannot leave these volumes without a vivid sense of her forceful character.

J. P. Nettl's work reveals his profound knowledge of Marxist theory and socialist history, and admirable command of his sources, and sincere, though not blind, admiration for his subject. The result is an important and long overdue study which goes far toward presenting Rosa Luxemburg in a light that does justice to her work and person. In retelling the story, Nettl's account is more balanced, searching, and thorough than all earlier biographies of Luxemburg. The study may well arouse controversies in many quarters, but it will not soon be superseded.

An original and provocative, and never boring biography of one of the leading figures of international socialism.

Nettl has given a clearer description of Luxemburg’s personality, and has overcome what her sentimental German friends regarded as a dichotomy between her personal and political lives. Nettl clearly brings out the link between her humanism and her revolutionary ideology. The portraits of her colleagues and opponents are also well drawn, as well as Luxemburg’s relations with them; the close relationship between her political and personal friendships is clearly shown.

A remarkable woman about whom J. P. Nettl has written a remarkable book.

These volumes are less a biography of a person than an analysis of the revolutionary movements which helped to shape modern European history. Refreshingly free of the obscurantism of contemporary social science, the author nevertheless provides "analysis in depth" of the political sociology as well as the ideological foundations of modern Socialist-Communist movements. The author of these volumes, however objective he may be, is not neutral in his judgment of Rosa Luxemburg. His manifest admiration for her is obvious but has not impaired his scholarship or his judgment as a scholar.

In a massive work that supersedes all previous studies of the subject, J.P. Nettl has fulfilled his intention of providing "a fairly complete picture of Rosa Luxemburg as a living and active person in both her private and political life." Impressive research in both published sources and archival collections gives this book an unmistakable solidity, and yet it is written in the main with zest and sophistication. He has succeeded magnificently in conveying the incandescent quality of Rosa Luxemburg's personality. And if the reader should chance not to share Mr. Nettl's "obsession," he can hardly fail to be attracted by this vital, courageous, agile-minded, freedom-loving woman, to be moved by her heroism in life and her martyr's death.

Nettl's book is far more than a biography, and reveals, through Luxemburg's life and work, a whole historical period which, far belonging to the irrevocable past, still determines the present and future. Although these events and movements have been dealt with in numerous other books, seldom have they been treated in such close connection with the particular ideas and activities of Rosa Luxemburg. And as regards her work in the Polish social-democratic movement, which fills about half the book, as it filled half of Rosa Luxemburg's life and interests, very little of this has been related previously. This alone gives Nettl's book a special importance and a definite place in the literature of Marxism.

If Rosa Luxemburg deserves a monument, she has it in the book under review. Among several monographs on contemporary socialist leaders published in recent years, this stands out for its completeness. There is hardly an aspect in the life of "Red Rosa" that has not been mentioned, elucidated, and interpreted by the author. Moreover, he brings into focus events, figures, and problems connected with the biography of his heroine. And since Luxemburg cast her lot with German and Polish and, to a certain extent, Russian socialist movements and with the Second International, he has made a contribution to the history of the Social Democratic parties in Central and Eastern Europe between the end of 1890 and 1918-19. Nettl's biography of Rosa Luxemburg is an impressive achievement and deserves the attention of everybody interested in the history of the Socialist movement.

Nettl's book is the first thorough and scholarly attempt to do justice to this amazing and dramatic career. Thoroughly readable. It would be difficult to think of another work of this magnitude in this difficult and controversial field which has so brilliantly justified itself or preserved so fair and even a balance between sympathy and criticism.

Excellent