Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Age of Enlightened Rule?
- Part II Leadership as Social Activism around 1900
- 7 Age and Purpose: Unmarried Women and Female Agency in the Works of E. Marlitt and Hedwig Dohm
- 8 “Heroism of the Mother”: Women's Rights Pioneer Jeannette Schwerin, Motherlove, and Women's Leadership in German-Speaking Central Europe, 1890–1914
- 9 Strategic Optimism: Bertha von Suttner's Activism for Peace
- 10 Humanizing Socialism: The Feminist Dimension of Rosa Luxemburg's Intellectual Leadership
- Part III Women and Political Power in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Bibliography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
10 - Humanizing Socialism: The Feminist Dimension of Rosa Luxemburg's Intellectual Leadership
from Part II - Leadership as Social Activism around 1900
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2019
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I The Age of Enlightened Rule?
- Part II Leadership as Social Activism around 1900
- 7 Age and Purpose: Unmarried Women and Female Agency in the Works of E. Marlitt and Hedwig Dohm
- 8 “Heroism of the Mother”: Women's Rights Pioneer Jeannette Schwerin, Motherlove, and Women's Leadership in German-Speaking Central Europe, 1890–1914
- 9 Strategic Optimism: Bertha von Suttner's Activism for Peace
- 10 Humanizing Socialism: The Feminist Dimension of Rosa Luxemburg's Intellectual Leadership
- Part III Women and Political Power in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries
- Bibliography
- Notes on the Contributors
- Index
Summary
There is nothing more changeable than human psychology. That's especially because the psyche of the masses, like Thalatta, the eternal sea, always bears within it every latent possibility: deathly stillness and raging storm, the basest cowardice and the wildest heroism. The masses are always what they must be according to the circumstances of the times, and they are always on the verge of becoming something totally different from what they seem to be. My dear little girl, “disappointment with the masses” is always the most reprehensible quality to be found in a political leader. A leader with the quality of greatness applies tactics, not according to the momentary mood of the masses, but according to higher laws of development, and sticks firmly to those tactics despite all disappointments and, for the rest, calmly allows history to bring its work to fruition.
—Rosa Luxemburg1ROSA LUXEMBURG PENNED these words while imprisoned in the notorious Wronke Fortress during the First World War, as part of an effort to come to terms with one of the darkest moments of modern history. At the time all hope for radical social transformation seemed to have evaporated in the face of statist militarism and the capitulation of most of the socialist movement to it. We do not face the same conditions today, but in many respects her words reach out beyond the break between the generations. The crisis facing us may even be more serious, since it has become hard to pin hopes for human emancipation on the forward progress of history when existing society seems to be marching headlong toward global planetary destruction—while descending into a depth of racism, misogyny, and political degeneracy not seen in decades. Nevertheless, Luxemburg's comment speaks to us in important ways, since it is hard to envision any alternative to our present predicament that does not acknowledge the capacity of masses of people to awaken, change, and ultimately fulfill the historical mission to realize their human potential.
Luxemburg was no accidental bystander to the traumas of her time, and it is to be expected that her life and work would tell us much about female leadership.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Realities and Fantasies of German Female LeadershipFrom Maria Antonia of Saxony to Angela Merkel, pp. 204 - 222Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2019