Olaf Scholz: The Sinister Past of Germany’s Future Chancellor

Olaf Scholz has a good chance of becoming Germany's next chancellor. Why has the media largely ignored his problematic record?

In Berlin, 56% Voted to Expropriate Big Landlords

On Sunday, 56% of Berliners voted in favor of expropriating housing companies that own more than 3,000 units in the city. But a militant campaign will be needed to implement the voters’ will.

Is This the End for the German SPD?

The laughably garish party congress of the once mighty Social Democratic Party is a perfect metaphor for its continued decline.

Rosa Luxemburg at 150: No “Harmless Icon”

Rosa Luxemburg was born on March 5, 1871. She is often presented as a pacifist, a democrat, and an opponent of the Russian Revolution. None of this is true. She was a revolutionary communist.

Was Rosa Luxemburg an Opponent of the Russian Revolution?

Rosa Luxemburg is often presented as an opponent of the Russian Revolution, but this is a deliberate misunderstanding. In fact, she was no more and no less than a critical Bolshevik.

A Poem To Leftists Who Object to Violence

As uprisings sweep the United States, there is a small minority of socialists who object to "violence," "looting," etc. We have published a number of articles about this — but really, this poem sums it up better than any article. It is about a revolutionary who wants to avoid damaging street lights at all costs.

Bhaskar Sunkara’s “Socialist Manifesto”: Dreaming of Sweden

Following in the footsteps of Marx and Engels, the founding editor of Jacobin has released a manifesto about how to reach socialism. But instead of a bold vision for the future, this book offers borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered 1970s.

Kautsky, Luxemburg, and Lenin in Light of the German Revolution

What can socialists today learn from Karl Kautsky? To answer this question, we need to see how his theories held up during the German Revolution of 1918. This presentation, part of an ongoing debate with Eric Blanc, Charlie Post, Mike Taber, and other socialists, was given at the Socialism in Our Time conference on April 14 in New York City.

The Politics of Red Rosa

On January 15, 1919, a group of Freikorps (German paramilitaries) murdered Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. What they could not kill was the powerful ideas of the “red rose” of the world proletariat, Rosa Luxemburg.