Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt

Red Rosa Goes To War Alfredo Schulte-Bockholt

With the Bolsheviks already in power in Russia after the 1917 revolution, Germany's new socialist government following its own revolution was faced with a problem. To take the same path as the Russians, completely stripping the old upper classes of all their power could be a disaster in an advanced industrial country like Germany. Worse, for Rosa Luxemburg, socialist revolutionary and anti-war campaigner, now the new Chancellor of Germany, to end the war by accepting an armistice from the Allies would also mean surrendering to the Capitalists. The only solution was to continue the conflict, but was there any hope of winning, and could the new Germany expect support from any of the other European countries where socialism was on the rise? More worryingly, could they really trust the Russian Bolsheviks?