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News > Germany

Workers Remember Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht's Legacies

  • People gathering to commemorate the deaths of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, in Berlin, Germany, January 12, 2019.

    People gathering to commemorate the deaths of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, in Berlin, Germany, January 12, 2019. | Photo: Reuters

Published 12 January 2020
Opinion

The Rosa Luxemburg International Conference kicked off with thousands who share ​​​​​​​struggle experiences.

The European left's largest conference Saturday began in Berlin paying tribute to the memory of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two communist revolutionaries killed by far-right paramilitaries on January 15, 1919.

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Over 3,000 people are sharing and analyzing experiences of the struggle around the world at the Rosa Luxemburg International Conference (RLIC), which has been running since 1996 every second Saturday in January and is sponsored by the Marxist newspaper "Jungle Welt" and more than 70 social organizations, unions, and parties.

"Class contradictions have worsened especially in Latin America. In Chile, the neoliberal upper class has been facing an enraged population since October. In Bolivia, a coup d'etat was perpetrated against President Evo Morales," states the 2020 RLIC which has the motto "The Power of the Street."

"Cuba continues to resist the U.S.-based economic warfare. Venezuela has resisted the U.S.-staged coup d'etat. In Brazil, the fascist president Jair Bolsonaro had to release his most important adversary, the Workers' Party leader Lula da Silva. Important victories and lost battles​​​​​​​."​​​​​​​

​​​​​​​At this year's conference,  representatives of social organizations made several presentations highlighting the U.S. aggression against Latin American peoples​​​​​​​.

“In Venezuela, we continue to fight Imperialism, which wants to get its hands on the continent,” the Committee of International Solidarity and Struggle for Peace (COSI) spokesperson Carolus Wimmer said.

"Thanks to international solidarity, we are still resisting, confident that the future will be victorious," he added.

Rosa Luxemburg, who would be a precursor to the German Communist Party and author of books such as "Reform or Revolution" (1900) and "The Accumulation of Capital" (1913), participated in the Berlin's 1919 revolution.​​​​​​​

"Catalan anti-fascist blog in tribute to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Berlin today. Fascism advances if it is not fought."

This popular uprising was crushed by the army and the "​​​​​​​Free Corps" (Freikorps), which were paramilitaries recruited by the Social Democratic government among the demobilized WWI combatants. These groups captured, tortured and killed hundreds of leftist militants, including Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.

These two communist leaders became symbols for supporters of Marxism throughout the world due to their intellectual contributions and revolutionary consistency.

“Numerous monuments to Luxemburg and Liebknecht have been erected, also streets, schools and public institutions named for them,” the Peoplesworld commented.

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