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Elżbieta Ettinger's Rosa Luxemburg: A Life

Hagiographical account of Rosa Luxemburg's life, focusing more on her emotional and personal life. We will not find any critical passages here, nor embarrassing facts; the negatives are presented neutrally or glossed over. Rather than a complete picture, we get a rose-tinted, soft-focus, slightly dreamy one of someone who set out on a path inspired by Russian terrorists. It's the story of a woman with a terrible identity crisis, who, as a young girl, fell in with a bad crowd, ended up in prison, learnt about Marx, got romantically involved with a sociopath (Leo Jogiches), and dedicated herself to communism. Now, this Leo Jogiches, whom I suspect was autistic, is probably the real protagonist here, because he was the driving force much of the time. Very troubled. Very intense. Completely anti-social and destructive. At the moment you only learn of him indirectly, via Ettinger's and Nettl's biographies. I would like someone to write his biography, because his life was truly grim.

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