The German Revolution of 1918 and Spartacus 1919

The passage that I choose is the following:

"One thing is certain. The world war is a turning point. It is foolish and mad to imagine that we need only survive the war, like a rabbit waiting out the storm under a bush, in order to fall happily back into the old routine once it is over. The world war has altered the conditions of our struggle and, most of all, it has changed us. Not that the basic law of capitalist development, the life-and-death war between capital and labor, will experience any amelioration. But now, in the midst of the war, the masks are falling and the old familiar visages smirk at us. The tempo of development has received a mighty jolt from the eruption of the volcano of imperialism. The violence of the conflicts in the bosom of society, the enormousness of the tasks that tower up before the socialist proletariat – these make everything that has transpired in the history of the workers’ movement seem a pleasant idyll."

Luxemburg emphasizes the radical break with the past this crisis has created. This is an important nihilistic theme while also suggesting the necessity to adapt and to change tactics, in part to prepare for even greater disasters that might come after.

I think this passage is explaining how the world is changing and how the war has make

our lives so different. Luxemburg is trying to make a point that the conflict between society and socialists it's what is making things so difficult. To think that in order to survive a war, basically must hide in order to avoid being killed. After the war everything goes back to what it was, and I don't think life should be like that. Life is about to express what you feel, but not in that way of killing people. The time of war was a time of deciding between life or death. Those were hard times.