Rosa Luxemburg

(1871 - 1919)

Having illegally spoken against German involvement in World War I, “Bloody Rosa” wrote to her friends from prison, around the same time that she cofounded the Spartacus League. Not long before her release in 1918, she wrote an appraisal of the revolution in Russia: “[Lenin] is completely mistaken in the means he employs. Decree, dictatorial force of the factory overseer, draconian penalties, rule by terror—all these things are but palliatives.” Luxemburg was killed by German soldiers in the Spartacist Revolt in early 1919.