Rosa Luxemburg
Martinique
Written: After the volanic eruption in May, 1902 at the port of St. Pierre
First Published: Leipziger Volkszeitung, May 15, 1902
Translated: David Wolff, News & Letters, Jan.-Feb. 1983
Online Version: mea 1996; marxists.org 1999
Transcribed: Dave Hollis/Brian Basgen
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 the 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 50
years ago. 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, 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 40,000 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: 50 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. Not fire-spewing mountains - there,
American rifles mowed down human lives in heaps; the sugar cartel Senate
which 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 camparts of
Praga, where warm Polish blood flowed in streams and turned the sky red
with its steam. 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 courtyards, 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 20,000 corpses covered the pavements of Paris!
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.