Heroic Illusions of Nature in Revolt: Luxemburgian Ecosocialism between William Morris and the Book of Exodus

Abstract

ABSTRACT Historians have long demarcated between the public, political, and economic writings of revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg and her personal affinity for plants and animals. This article, however, discovers and articulates a Luxemburgian ecosocialism across her work. This paper argues that Luxemburg interpreted nature as possessing its own order that resists the imposition of capitalist and imperialist (dis)orders. Luxemburgian ecosocialism, therefore, lies between the appreciation of beauty one finds in the Marxism of William Morris and the active participation of nature in the historic revolt against imperialism one finds in the Book of Exodus. According to Luxemburgian ecosocialism, that which unites Luxemburg's letters and Herbarium to her Die Akkumulation des Kapitels is a confidence that empires overextend themselves in their exploitation of human beings and nature, and that the natural order accordingly fights back. Beyond Luxemburg, this paper emphasizes the importance of fiction and illusion for ecosocialist storytelling, and argues for an ecosocialist vision that takes as its starting point not the elitism of aesthetic preference but radical forms of solidarity with suffering creation.