2019 Partizan figures first look

"Freiheit ist immer nur Freiheit des anders Denkenden"

We always try to do something a bit different with the Partizan figures. Over the last few years this has usually involved basing them on historical figures of interest - both military and civilian - particularly if there is an interesting anniversary lurking around a corner. This year is no exception and we have decided to make a temporary swerve to the left to celebrate two notable figures of the socialist movement.

2019 is the centenary of the Spartacist Uprising in Berlin in 1919. In 1915 one of the founders of the Spartakusbund  (Spartacus League) - originally a left wing anti-war movement - was the Polish-German philosopher and activist Rosa Luxemburg. When Germany was defeated in 1918 the league became very active in the post-war chaos of the German Revolution and Luxemburg, along with Karl Leibknecht, co-founded the Red Flag Newspaper and took part in the first congress that founded the German Communist Party.

In January 1919 a wave of violent strikes and uprising swept across Germany with armed bands attempting to seize control in a number of cities. Although Luxemburg apparently considered this a mistake, she did eventual come to support the uprising in Berlin. But it was a short lived revolution and was quickly crushed by the German Freikorps - mostly WW1 veterans - raised in support of the existing government. On 15th January 1919 Luxemburg and Leibknecht were captured by Freikorps troops and executed.

There is no evidence that Rosa Luxemburg physically took up arms during the uprising but we have asked our figure designer Martin Baker to model her with a rifle as if she were standing on the barricades in defence of the revolution. Here is the green ready for mould making.

The figure will be free to everyone trading, putting on a game or running a society stand at the Partizan show on 19th May and will also be free for the first 500 visitors through the door on the day.