Hasla 1go Maja.
THE ICONIC RED ISSUE
[Luxemburg, Rosa]. Hásla 1go Maja. [in:] Sprawa Robotnicza. Organ Socjaldemokracji Krolestwa Polskiego. [Paris: A. Reiffa], April, 1895.
Folio, pp. 8, the entire sheet (920 x 585 mm), printed on red paper; restorations to folds, minor marginal flaws; from the archive of the Polish Social Democratic Party (SDKPiL) with their oval stamp in the upper margin of page one; preserved in a transparent folder.
The only issue of this socialist periodical to be printed on red paper, containing – after a political poem, written in a Warsaw prison – Rosa Luxemburg’s article Slogan for the 1st of May (pp. 1-4). At the end of this issue, intended to coordinate the workers’ demands at the Mayday demonstrations the three major points she put forward are summed up in large print: Long live the Constitution! Long live the eight-hour Day! Long live Socialism!
Rosa Luxemburg was closely linked to the periodical Workers’ Cause, and travelled frequently to Paris to oversee the printing. She signed this Labour Day appeal with one of her many pseudonyms, R. K., which stands for R. Kruszynska. This particular issue was intended as a red identification symbol at the Mayday demonstrations, having been smuggled into Poland. The slogans at the end were to give the organizers ideas for the inscriptions of the banners. – A, naturally, very rare and evocative item, suitable for display.
Provenance: The SDKP was founded in 1893 by Luxemburg and her partner Leo Jogiches as a left-wing anti-nationalist party. In 1900 the party merged with the Lithuanian Social Democrats.
RLIN locates issues 1-6 of 1893, and this issue in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam; KvK locates this issue in the British Library (separate leaves, encapsulated in tissue, on stubs, resulting in loss of letters).
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