The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles...Social democracy...is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh. Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the essential role of the working class in shaping social democracy through their struggles and experiences.
Rosa Luxemburg's quote highlights that the working class learns to advocate for their rights through their own struggles and experiences. Social democracy, being a part of this movement, reflects the needs and demands of the broader working masses. It illustrates how social democracy grows and gains momentum from the actual fight and challenges faced by workers, rooting its strategies and slogans deeply in their ongoing struggles.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech advocating for workers' rights during a labor rally.
Our scribblings are usually not lyrics but whirrings, without colour or resonance, like the tone of an engine-wheel. I believe that the cause lies in the fact that when people write, they forget for the most part to dig deeply into themselves and to feel the whole import and truth of what they are writing.
Freedom for supporters of the government only, for members of one party only no matter how big its membership may be is no freedom at all. Freedom is always freedom for the man who thinks differently.
Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
The existing legal constitution is nothing but the product of a revolution. Revolution is the act of political creation in the history of classes, while constitutional legislation is the expression of the continual political vegetation of a society.
Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.
Work for legal reform takes place only within the framework of the social form created by the last revolution.
Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy.
A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.
Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
The public think the politicians don't know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood.
A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.
Your proposal raises the greatest mischief that can befall my country. You could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. Let me conjure you then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for your self or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, never communicate, as from yourself, or anyone else, a sentiment of the like nature.
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