From Rosa Luxemburg to Hannah Arendt

The relationship between Rosa Luxemburg and Hannah Arendt has occasionally been noted but rarely systematically discussed. In fact, there is a profound sense in which Arendt's continuing preoccupation with the significance of the extermination camps owes much to Luxemburg's earlier expressed concern that barbarism was a real possibility. Luxemburg first raised this in the context of the First World War, which she saw as a catastrophe marking a fundamental break with the past and opening the way to terrible new possibilities. The terms that Luxemburg used to describe this catastrophe apply better to subsequent events that Arendt was to analyse, particularly the extermination camps (“hell” on earth). In explaining how barbarism could occur, Arendt drew extensively on Luxemburg, emphasising the impact of world wars, imperialism and nationalism, though she was of course then to go further in analysing what barbarism meant when it took place

Archaeology · Barbarism · Civilization · Political science · Politics · Psychoanalysis · Socialism · Sociology · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · History · Law · Philosophy · Political Theology and Sovereignty · Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification

• Hannah Arendt and Marxist Theories of Totalitarianism

  Open Access•Nicholas Devlin•Modern Intellectual History•2021

  Incluir item

• European Marxism and the Question of Antisemitism

  Open Access•Philip Spencer•European Societies•2012

  Incluir item

• Marxism, cosmopolitanism and 'the' Jews

  Philip Spencer•European Review of History Revue…•2016

  Incluir item

• The persistence of collective guilt

  Samantha Ashenden•Economy and Society•2014

  Incluir item