I'm reminded by this post at SIAW that today is the anniversary of the murder of Rosa Luxemburg. Here are some words from a review by Gwyn Williams of Elzbieta Ettinger's Rosa Luxemburg: A Life:
The account of her last day in Elzbieta Ettinger's sparse and stark prose is unbearable. We have seen millions of unrecorded Rosas go since, but there is still something unspeakable about that final scene in which a small, doomed, grey-haired woman limps bravely through a sick mob of braying brutes. It kills hope.These lines are from a letter written from prison by Rosa Luxemburg in May 1917:"Cursed be peoples," wrote her Adam Mickiewicz, "that murder their prophets." Are we to go on cursing for ever? [Guardian, May 8, 1987.]
I feel so much more at home even in a scrap of garden like the one here, and still more in the meadows when the grass is humming with bees than - at one of our party congresses. I can say that to you, for you will not promptly suspect me of treason to socialism! You know that I really hope to die at my post, in a street fight or in prison.