Rosa Luxemburg in the DDR

If Rosa Luxemburg survived the Spartacist uprising and fled to the USSR. If she survived the World War II, would she have been in line for a leadership position in East Germany?
 

NoMommsen

Donor
If Rosa Luxemburg survived the Spartacist uprising and fled to the USSR. If she survived the World War II, would she have been in line for a leadership position in East Germany?
Most likely not, too independant and strong mind, that she would have survived Stalin, maybe a similar 'fate' as Trotsky.
 
She will be 74 in 1945. And there's no real given she'll be welcome in Soviet Russia given her public criticism of the October Revolution. And at least according to Trotsky, Stalin hated her, so even if Lenin lets her come, she'll likely go "missing" when the big dog comes to power. The new Communist Government might give her a hero's welcome, but that would be about it.
 

redeclipse

Banned
I always kind of figured if the German Revolution of the 20s succeeded and Germany went socialist, they'd end up rivals with the Bolsheviks. Lenin or Trotsky I forget who called the Spartacists "Bundist trash". I don't think they'd work well together.
 

RousseauX

Donor
If Rosa Luxemburg survived the Spartacist uprising and fled to the USSR. If she survived the World War II, would she have been in line for a leadership position in East Germany?
She might have being purged in the 1930s just like the rest of the German Communists who fled there

If she survived though she would have being as a non-entity, an old woman whose publications are decidedly ignored by the SED, some works of hers might get smuggled to the west though and find a following there. She might have split the left-wing movement even more than otl since now there is another variant on Marxism to follow.
 
She might have being purged in the 1930s just like the rest of the German Communists who fled there

If she survived though she would have being as a non-entity, an old woman whose publications are decidedly ignored by the SED, some works of hers might get smuggled to the west though and find a following there. She might have split the left-wing movement even more than otl since now there is another variant on Marxism to follow.

What if she fled westward instead, and eventually settled in the Bundesrepublik?
 
Honecker had a soft spot for her, I would never be a socialist except for her example, he said.

No. She was way too independent-minded for the Comintern (i.e., Moscow) and would probably be expelled from the KPD early in the 1920's (i.e., when Zinoviev still headed the International) as Paul Levi (who had briefly been her lover) was in 1921 for his opposition to the "March Action." http://newpol.org/content/paul-levi-luxemburgist-alternative Unlike Levi, she probably would not have rejoined the SPD. She would probably be in some far-left sect unsatisfactory to Stalinists and Trotskyists alike. If she were to survive at all into the 1940's, it would be by fleeing to the West, not the East, and if she returned to Germany after World War II it would not be to the Soviet zone.
 
She had been killed in a Stalinist purge long ago. Being leader of a revolution would have been no protection, as with Bela Kun. Wouldn't put it past the Soviets to assassinate her if she is living elsewhere. She was only ever accepted into the pantheon because she was a martyr.
 

Nebogipfel

Monthly Donor
She would probably be in some far-left sect unsatisfactory to Stalinists and Trotskyists alike. If she were to survive at all into the 1940's, it would be by fleeing to the West

...and then she bumped into Ayn Rand :biggrin: Actually, she probably would have a cult following among the few earlier post war-leftists in West Germany. Possibly resulting in yet another bunch of permanently splitting K-groups in the 70s/80s, so not much change probably.
 
...and then she bumped into Ayn Rand :biggrin: Actually, she probably would have a cult following among the few earlier post war-leftists in West Germany. Possibly resulting in yet another bunch of permanently splitting K-groups in the 70s/80s, so not much change probably.

In a surviving Kaiserreich this is her fate for me, less violent and more democratic leaning Marxist helping to splinter the far-left in opposition to the SPD and USPD, the SPD moving centrist, USPD filling in the left of left-centre, merging back in eventually, communists lurking out of power but popular enough to infuriate the SPD mainstream. Through the 1930s her party might get some seats, more likely to hold some seats in the Prussian diet from a very labor dominated area, and then obscurity. She is someone you read about in political theory or history classes, an obscure proponent of yet another brand of left wing Marxist inspired evolution and utopia. A bit of a cult following for the new left emerging in the 1960s, her generally cooperative and pro-democratic rhetoric emphasized to make Communism palatable.
 
Alternatively it's possible that her views could have changed while living in the Soviet Union and witnessing the following decades of history. Plenty of revisionists and ultraleftists were won back/won over to Marxism-Leninism over the course of the 20th century. Luxemburg was a smart person, not a dogmatist, and I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that she could come around and become a senior member of the SED.
 
Top