There has recently in British politics been a real drive by the major parties to get more female MPs. This is in response to the criticism that male representatives overwhelmingly dominate the Houses of Parliament. It has led to the creation of women-only short lists and schemes to fast track talented female party members. If you were to look only at this example you would think women were only now really beginning to make any mark on the political landscape.

While many mainstream female politicians might refer back to ‘respectable’ historical figures, we are not often told about the history of women who played a key role in working-class struggles all over the world.

One of the most important of these figures was revolutionary Rosa Luxembourg. Rosa was born in Poland in 1871. By the age of 18 she was in exile in Switzerland fearing that if she stayed in Poland she would be jailed for her political activity and her membership of the Revolutionary Party of Poland. In Zurich she met many political exiles from Russia and her discussions and disagreement with them led her to form the Polish Social Democratic Party.

Rosa moved again, this time to Berlin. She joined the German Social Democratic Labour Party and her decisive role in German politics began. Her approach was to support reforms to improve people’s lives but she saw that governments couldn’t be trusted to deliver the reforms that were needed to give a good quality of life to all and this is why she believed only a revolution in German society could secure good conditions for all.

Within the Social Democratic Party, which was a mass organisation, she fought vehemently to defend the relevance of Marxism in the face of reformists who said Marxism was out of date and only the reformation of capitalism was possible in achieving social equality.

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Luxembourg raised the anti-war call explaining that it was capitalist interests that were being served as millions of workers died in the trenches. In response the heightened nationalism caused by the war she called for the establishment of a new workers’ international. She was arrested in 1915 and remained in jail until 1918, just prior to the German revolution.

Rosa was to lead the revolution having been one of the founding members of the German Communist Party along with Karl Liebknecht. They called for the workers to seize power through the soviets to end the reign of capitalism. It was alongside him she was murdered on the order of the reformists of the SPD who despised and feared the revolution. The revolution lacked their leadership and was crushed leaving workers demoralised and open to new attacks by the bourgeoisie. Her legacy still lives on long after her death through her writings and the inspirational role she played as a woman, a fighter and a socialist.

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