[Peace-discuss] Rosa Luxemburg

[David Green]

Subject: Martinique - by Rosa Luxenburg

MONTHY REVIEW
www.monthlyreview.org



 
January 2005Martinique
Rosa Luxemburg
Reprinted from The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, edited by
Peter Hudis and 
Kevin B. Anderson (Monthly Review Press, 2004).This
article, written 
shortly after a massive volcanic eruption in May 1902
at the port of St. 
Pierre in the Caribbean island of Martinique, reflects
Luxemburg’s intense 
interest in events outside of Europe and her fervent
opposition to 
European colonialism. It was first published in the
Leipziger Volkszeitung 
of May 15, 1902. The translation is by David Wolff.
—Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson


Mountains of smoking ruins, heaps of mangled corpses,
a steaming, 
smoking sea of fire wherever you turn, mud and
ashes—that is all that 
remains of the flourishing little city which perched
on the rocky slope of 
the volcano like a fluttering swallow. For some time
the angry giant had 
been heard to rumble and rage against this human
presumption, the blind 
self-conceit of the two-legged dwarfs. Great-hearted
even in his wrath, 
a true giant, he warned the reckless creatures that
crawled at his 
feet. He smoked, spewed out fiery clouds, in his bosom
there was seething 
and boiling and explosions like rifle volleys and
cannon thunder. But 
the lords of the earth, those who ordain human
destiny, remained with 
faith unshaken—in their own wisdom.
On [May] 7th, the commission dispatched by the
government announced to 
the anxious people of St. Pierre that all was in order
in heaven and on 
earth. All is in order, no cause for alarm!—as they
said on the eve of 
the Oath of the Tennis Court in the dance-intoxicated
halls of Louis 
XVI, while in the crater of the revolutionary volcano
fiery lava was 
gathering for the fearful eruption. All is in order,
peace and quiet 
everywhere!—as they said in Vienna and Berlin on the
eve of the March 
eruption fifty years ago.1 

The old, long-suffering titan of Martinique paid no 
heed to the reports of the honorable commission: after
the people had 
been reassured by the governor on the 7th, he erupted
in the early hours 
of the 8th and buried in a few minutes the governor,
the commission, 
the people, houses, streets and ships under the fiery
exhalation of his 
indignant heart.
The work was radically thorough. Forty thousand human
lives mowed down, 
a handful of trembling refugees rescued—the old giant
can rumble and 
bubble in peace, he has shown his might, he has
fearfully avenged the 
slight to his primordial power.
And now in the ruins of the annihilated city on
Martinique a new guest 
arrives, unknown, never seen before—the human being.
Not lords and 
bondsmen, not blacks and whites, not rich and poor,
not plantation owners 
and wage slaves—human beings have appeared on the tiny
shattered island, 
human beings who feel only the pain and see only the
disaster, who only 
want to help and succor. Old Mt. Pelee has worked a
miracle! Forgotten 
are the days of Fashoda,2 forgotten the conflict over
Cuba, forgotten 
“la Revanche”—the French and the English, the Tsar and
the Senate of 
Washington, Germany and Holland donate money, send
telegrams, extend the 
helping hand. A brotherhood of peoples against
nature’s burning hatred, 
a resurrection of humanism on the ruins of human
culture. The price of 
recalling their humanity was high, but thundering Mt.
Pelee had a voice 
to catch their ear.
France weeps over the tiny island’s forty thousand
corpses, and the 
whole world hastens to dry the tears of the Mother
Republic. But how was 
it then, centuries ago, when France spilled blood in
torrents for the 
Lesser and Greater Antilles? In the sea off the east
coast of Africa lies 
a volcanic island—Madagascar: fifty years ago there we
saw the 
disconsolate Republic who weeps for her lost children
today, how she bowed the 
obstinate native people to her yoke with chains and
the sword. No 
volcano opened its crater there: the mouths of French
cannons spewed out 
death and annihilation; French artillery fire swept
thousands of flowering 
human lives from the face of the earth until a free
people lay 
prostrate on the ground, until the brown queen of the
“savages” was dragged off 
as a trophy to the “City of Light.”
On the Asiatic coast, washed by the waves of the
ocean, lie the smiling 
Philippines. Six years ago we saw the benevolent
Yankees, we saw the 
Washington Senate at work there.3
Not fire-spewing mountains—there, 
American rifles mowed down human lives in heaps; the
sugar cartel Senate 
today sends golden dollars to Martinique, thousands
upon thousands, to 
coax life back from the ruins, sent cannon upon
cannon, warship upon 
warship, golden dollars millions upon millions to
Cuba, to sow death and 
devastation.
Yesterday, today, far off in the African south, where
only a few years 
ago a tranquil little people lived by their labor and
in peace, there 
we saw how the English wreak havoc, these same
Englishmen who in 
Martinique save the mother her children and the
children their parents: there 
we saw them stamp on human bodies, on children’s
corpses with brutal 
soldiers boots, wading in pools of blood, death and
misery before them 
and behind.
Ah, and the Russians, the rescuing, helping, weeping
Tsar of All the 
Russians—an old acquaintance! We have seen you on the
ramparts of Praga, 
where warm Polish, blood flowed in streams and turned
the sky red with 
its steam.4 
But those were the old days. No! Now, only a few weeks
ago, 
we have seen you benevolent Russians on your dusty
highways, in ruined 
Russian villages eye to eye with the ragged, wildly
agitated, grumbling 
mob; gunfire rattled, gasping muzhiks fell to the
earth, red peasant 
blood mingled with the dust of the highway. They must
die, they must fall 
because their bodies doubled up with hunger, because
they cried out for 
bread, for bread!
And we have seen you too, Oh Mother Republic, you
tear-distiller. It 
was on May 23 of 1871: the glorious spring sun shone
down on Paris; 
thousands of pale human beings in working clothes
stood packed together in 
the streets, in prison courtyard, body to body and
head to head; through 
loopholes in the walls, mitrailleuses thrust their
bloodthirsty 
muzzles. No volcano erupted, no lava stream poured
down. Your cannons, Mother 
Republic, were turned on the tight-packed crowd,
screams of pain rent 
the air—over twenty thousand corpses covered the
pavements of Paris!5
And all of you—whether French and English, Russians
and Germans, 
Italians and Americans—we have seen you all together
once before in brotherly 
accord, united in a great league of nations, helping
and guiding each 
other: it was in China. There too you forgot all
quarrels among 
yourselves, there too you made a peace of peoples—for
mutual murder and the 
torch. Ha, how the pigtails fell in rows before your
bullets, like a ripe 
grainfield lashed by the hail! Ha, how the wailing
women plunged into 
the water, their dead in their cold arms, fleeing the
tortures of your 
ardent embraces!
And now they have all turned to Martinique, all one
heart and one mind 
again; they help, rescue, dry the tears and curse the
havoc-wreaking 
volcano. Mt. Pelee, great-hearted giant, you can
laugh; you can look down 
in loathing at these benevolent murderers, at these
weeping carnivores, 
at these beasts in Samaritan’s clothing. But a day
will come when 
another volcano lifts its voice of thunder: a volcano
that is seething and 
boiling, whether you need it or not, and will sweep
the whole 
sanctimonious, blood-splattered culture from the face
of the earth. And only on 
its ruins will the nations come together in true
humanity, which will 
know but one deadly foe—blind, dead nature.

Notes
1.  A reference to the outbreak of the 1848
revolutions in Europe. 
2.  In 1898 France and England almost went to war over
a conflict in 
Fashoda, Sudan. 
3.  A reference to the Spanish-American War of 1898,
in which the United 
States took possession of the Philippines and Cuba.
This occurred not six but four years previously. 
4.  “The ramparts of Praga” refers to a massacre by
the Russian army against a Polish uprising in Praga, a
suburb of Warsaw, in 1831. 
5.  A reference to the brutal suppression of the Paris
Commune of 1871, in which thousands of revolutionaries
were slaughtered by French 
government