Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) was a Marxist political theorist, economist, and revolutionary active in the Polish, German, and international socialist movements. Born in Zamość in Russian-partitioned Poland and raised in Warsaw, she fled political prosecution to Switzerland, earning a doctorate at the University of Zurich in 1897. She settled in Germany, where she became a leading theorist of the Social Democratic Party's left wing, writing on capital accumulation, mass strikes, and revolution. In December 1905 she returned to Warsaw under the alias 'Anna Matschke' to take part in the Russian Revolution; she was arrested in March 1906, held in the Warsaw Citadel's Pavilion X, released in July 1906, and left the city in August 1906. Opposing the First World War, she was imprisoned for most of 1916–1918, held at the fortress of Wronke and then in Breslau. She co-founded the Spartacus League and the Communist Party of Germany. During the January 1919 Berlin uprising she was seized by Freikorps troops and killed.