The Crisis of German Social Democracy: The Junius Pamphlet

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) was a Polish-Jewish-German communist. After the German Social Democratic Party supported German involvement in World War I, she co-founded, with Karl Liebknecht, the anti-war Spartacist Leage. On January 1, 1919 the Spartacist League became the Communist Party of Germany. She regarded the Spartacist revolt of January 1919 in Berlin as a blunder, but supported it after Liebknecht ordered it without her knowledge. When the revolt was crushed by right-wing militias, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were captured and shot without trial on January 15, 1919.Luxemburg wrote The Junius Brochure: The Crisis of German Social Democracy in February-April 1915 while in prison. It was first published under the pseudonym “Junius” in 1916 in Zurich, Switzerland.