SOURCE: "Rosa Luxemburg's Theory of Revolution," translated by E. B. Ashton, in Social Research, Vol. 40, No. 1, Spring, 1973, pp. 83-109.

In the following essay, Vollrath compares Luxemburg's theory of political action to ideas of Cicero, Robespierre and the American Federalists, as well as her Marxist contemporaries and successors.

I

Every political theory contains a theory on the nature of action, whether specifically weighed or tacitly assumed, stated in so many words or lodged in the categorial apparatus. The problem to which every theory of action seeks to give a direct or indirect answer is the problem of the start and of starting—for all action is a beginning, a new beginning of something which previously did not exist. That such a beginning has been made can be established only when that which began is continued; unless the start is carried out, and the beginning is carried on, start and...