 While remaining sensitive to the historical circumstances that constrained the Bolsheviks (war, the pressure from the outside, the difficulties in the development of the working class movement in Russia, and the infancy of its democratic institutions), Luxemburg was one of the first Marxist theorists to highlight the importance of combining the struggle for socialism with that for democracy, and to warn against the dangers of divorcing the two. The history of socialist states in the 20th century has proved her right. The concentration of power in the hands of a narrow elite of party officials, the lack of transparency and accountability of institutions, their progressive isolation from the demands of the people, ultimately led to their demise. The ongoing importance of Luxemburg’s writings on the Bolshevik revolution lies not so much in her commentary on a historical experiment of which she always doubted the capacity to survive historical constraints. It consists in what they tell us about the ethics of revolution and the difficulties of constructing a movement of the oppressed which must realise freedom in circumstances in which it may lack the historical maturity, material and epistemic means that the maintenance of the status quo makes available.