After Barbarism: Rosa Luxemburg’s Revolutionary Life

‘Freedom is always and everywhere the freedom of dissenters.’ So said Rosa Luxemburg, champion of revolutionary democracy and icon of socialist struggle. Since her murder in 1919, she has been discovered anew: as a champion of freedom of thought, a socialist martyr, a pioneer in ecological awareness,  a brilliant economic thinker, an icon for feminists and critic of conservative feminism, and above all a revolutionary for whom socialism and freedom were indissolubly linked.

But admiration of Rosa often leaves her actual work unexamined. James Butler is joined by Dana Mills, author of a new critical biography of Luxemburg, to explore Red Rosa’s life, thought and many legacies. James wrote about Luxemburg for Novara Media last year, on the centenary of her murder.