414 THE CLASS STRUGGLE ROSA LUXEMBURG 415 wars, not by means of kind wishes, but by overthrowing and disarming the bourgeoisie.
Whoever in view of this last war is not willing to carry out this demand, let him be good enough to refrain from uttering large words about the international revolutionary democracy, about the social revolution, and about the war against wars.
Rosa Luxemburg Her fiight against the German betrayers of International Socialism By CLARA ZETKIN Rosa Luxemburg Junius pamphlet has its history and is itself a piece of history thanks both to the circumstances under which it originated and to the life that emanates from it in a sparkling, glowing stream.
Rosa Luxemburg wrote the pamphlet in April, 1915. few weeks before she had been forced to enter the Royal Prussian Women Prison, where she was to serve the year of imprisonment to which she had been sentenced by the Criminal Court of Frankfort a. for her courageous fight against militarism. In the fight, the sentence, and the sequel was gathered as in a nutshell what soon appeared, full grown, virile, unconcealed Rosa Luxemburg clear recognition of the imminent imperialistic tempest and the need of the hour for the proletariat to hurl itself against the onslaught with all the desperate energy of its protest; the courage and spirit of self sacrifice with which she led the fight against the dangerous enemy in the name of International Socialism; the acute capitalistic class instinct, not to say the wakeful capitalistic class consciousness with which the bourgeois world so ruthlessly applied its instruments of power to protect imperialism and to which the historical evolution of society, with the rise of imperialism, had assigned new tasks and a greater significance for the existence of capitalism; the dishonorable surrender of the German Social Democracy, or more correctly of its leadership, to militarism and imperialism.
In truth, at that time great masses of proletarianş burned with eagerness to go into the fight against militarism and imperialism. If their class consciousness did not yet clearly recognize the mortal enemy, their healthy class feeling sensed, anticipated that enemy. As though illuminated by a searchlight, militarism in its historic form had become visible on their horizon, glaringly exposed by Rosa Luxemburg condemnation and the reason for itthe conviction expressed by the courageous leader, that proletarians would not obey the command to raise the weapons of murder against their brothers of other nationalities. The rousing, fiery effect of the condemned words were intensified by the speech before the Frankfort Court, a classical document of political defense which in place of legal quibbling about guilt, penalty, and degree of punishment, set up the fight for the scientifically firmly established ideal of International Socialism. wave of spendid, determined fighting spirit rose out of the proletarian masses. It should have been the obvious task of Social Democratic leaders, they had the least political insight, to take advantage of this fighting spirit, to intensify it, in order to give militarism and imperialism a fight on a large scale, to give them a staggering blow. The Executive of the Social Democracy showed once again clearly that it was not convinced of the truth and worth of the great strong bulwark of that consistent Marxian standpoint which affords a free outlook over situations and their obvious development and thus determines the correct basis of judgment, of will, and of action.
In the present situation it gave itself the certificate of weakness that it fell short of everything that makes for political leadership. It avoided the obvious, the natural, the necessary thing to gather together the protest that was arising everywhere with elemental force against the judgment of the Frankfort Criminal Court, into a tremendous mass action against militarism and imperialism. The Party Executive went even further with its Backward, backward, Don Rodrigo to the proud vow of the Social Democracy. It tried to dam up the current that had begun without its effort. And all this in the atmosphere of burning indignation not only about the Luxemburg case but also about the triumph of the sabre in the scandalous trial against the little lieutenant, Forstner Zabern; about the sanguinary judgment of the Erfurt court martial, which, treading on all that is human, banished proletarians to the prisons for years on account of mere bagatelles; about the numerous cases of terrible abuse of the soldiers that were to be brought to light out of the darkness of the drill yards and the company rooms through an approaching second trial of Rosa Luxemburg if recollection does not deceive, more than 30, 000 mistreated men voluntered to act as witnesses.