el_chavista
20th April 2010, 23:49
The methodological significance of "socialism or barbarism"
(my translation, original in Spanish)
By Michael Löwy *
* Brazilian-born sociologist and director of Research Center of Paris. This article is Chapter VI of the book Dialectics and Revolution, Mexico, Siglo XXI, 1978. This version is published with the permission of the author.
In a thorough and penetrating analysis, the renowned Marxist sociologist realizes the "moralistic" and "deterministic" deformations of the conception of socialism, which had their origin in social democracy of the late nineteenth century but the influence of it was felt throughout the twentieth century. Against the historical fatalism about the inevitability of socialism, now its back again as its contrary: the impossibility of it, Löwy is based on the evolution of thought of Rosa Luxemburg and the best of revolutionary Marxism to claim the enormous historical actuality of this alternative, and the place of subjectivity, of a story where men are able to choose their destiny and to impose it.
Is socialism inevitable and a necessary product of historical development, economically determined, or is merely a moral choice, an ideal of justice and freedom? This "dilemma of powerlessness" among the fatalism of the pure laws and the ethics of pure intention (1) was the dilemma of the German Social Democracy before 1914. It was surpassed -in a dialectical sense, "Aufheben"- by Rosa Luxemburg, precisely through the formulation in the "Junius" pamphlet of 1915 of the famous slogan "socialism or barbarism." In this sense, Paul Frölich was right when he wrote that the pamphlet (whatever they may be their mistakes and shortcomings, criticized by Lenin) "is more than a historic monument: it is an Ariadne's thread in the present chaos" (2). We will try broadly to clarify the methodological significance of this slogan, meaning that we attach paramount importance to Marxist thought, but it was not always sufficiently understood and evaluated.
For Bernstein, after his "revision" of Marxism in The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy (1899), socialism no longer has an objective, material basis in the contradictions of capitalism and the class struggle ( phenomena whose denial is precisely the theme of the book.) He looked, therefore, another foundation, which can only be ethical: the eternal principles of morality, law, justice. In this sense in which we must understand the last chapter of the book (Kant wider Kant), which opposes Kant to "materialism" and "the contempt for the ideal" of the official social democratic thinking. This moral is obviously completely ahistorical and above classes. Para Bernstein, en efecto, “La moral sublime de Kant” se halla “en la base de las acciones eternas y universalmente humanas”; For Bernstein, in effect, "Kant's sublime morality" is "on the basis of the eternal and universal human actions"; finding in them an expression of something so rude and vulgar as the class interests of the bourgeoisie would be in his opinion simply "crazy" (3).
In Reform or Revolution (1899), Rosa Luxembourg answers to the "father of revisionism" with a passionate and rigorous demonstration of the deeply contradictory nature of capitalist development. Socialism derives from economic necessity and, in no way from this "old warhorse on which all reformers have ridden for centuries ..." (4).
However, wanting to take too much out this demonstration, Rosa is not always free from the temptation of "revolutionary fatalism", for example, by insisting on the first chapter of the anti-Bernstein brochure that the anarchy of the capitalist economy "drags it to inevitable ruin", the collapse of the capitalist system is the inevitable result of its insurmountable contradictions, and that the proletarian class consciousness is nothing more than "mere intellectual reflection of the growing contradictions of capitalism and its imminent collapse" ( 5). Of course, even at this writing, her most "deterministic" one, Rosa insists that the tactics of social democracy is not in any way awaiting the development of the antagonisms, but to "lean in the direction, once recognized, of the development and take up the consequences to the end"(6). This, however, does not really solve the problem, as Rosa still starts from the premise that there is in the final analysis, only one direction possible, "the direction of development." The awareness intervention of socialdemocracy remains, then, in a sense, an "assistant" element, a "stimulating" of a process, however, it is objectively necessary and inevitable.
If the "optimistic fatalism" of Rosa Luxemburg is, in 1899, a temptation, however, for Karl Kautsky it is the centerpiece of his entire worldview. Kautsky's thought is the product of a wonderfully merger achieved between metaphysics Enlightenment progress, social Darwinist evolutionism (7) and a seudo-"orthodox Marxist" determinism. The immense power of persuasion that this amalgam had on the German Social Democracy, making Kautsky the "Pope" of the doctrine of the Party and the Second International, it was not due solely to the author's undeniable talent, but also and above all to a particular historic situation, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during which the number of members and voters of social democracy increased with extraordinary regularity.
In Kautsky, therefore, the problem of the revolutionary initiative tends to disappear in favor of the "iron laws that determine the necessary transformation of society." In his most important book, The Road to Power (1909), repeatedly insists on the idea that the proletarian revolution is "irresistible" and "inevitable", "so irresistible and inevitable as is the continued development of capitalism," which leads him to this amazing conclusion, to this remarkable and transparent phrase that sums up all his vision admirably "expectant" of the story: "The revolutionary socialist party is not a party which does revolutions. We know our ends can not be met but by a revolution, but we also know that is not in our power to make the revolution, as it is not in the power of our adversaries to stop it.Therefore, we have never thought to cause or make a revolution "(8).
Especially after the 1905 Russian Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg began to pull away and criticize politically Kautsky increasingly "rigid and fatalistic" conception of Marxism which consists in "waiting with folded arms for the historical dialectic bringing us the ripe fruit (9). By 1909-1913, the polemic with Kautsky on the mass strike crystallized latent theoretical differences within the orthodox Marxist German Socialdemocracy. Apparently, the criticism of Rosa mainly aims to the purely parliamentarian character of the "strategy of exhaustion" (Ermattungstrategie) advocated by Kautsky. But on a deeper level, it's all the "passive radicalism" of Kautsky (Pannekoek dixit), his pseudorevolutionary fatalism which is subject to discussion by Rosa. Against this theory of expectation, in which stubborn faith in the "inevitable" parliamentary election victory was but one of the political demonstrations, Rosa develops its strategy of mass strike founded on the principle of conscious intervention: "The mission of social democracy and its leaders is not to be swept away by events, but getting ahead of them consciously, covering with his eyes the direction of the evolution and shorten this development by a conscious action, and accelerating their progress "(10 .)
However, until 1914 the break is not complete with Kautsky and the "socialist fatalism." As demonstrated by the passage just quoted, for Rose there is no more than one "sense of evolution," it is only for "shorting" and "speeding." It took the catastrophe of August 4, 1914, the shameful capitulation of German social democracy to the war policy of the Kaiser, the dislocation of the International and the enlistment of the proletarian masses in that vast fratricidal slaughter called "First World War" to make Rosa hesitate about the advent of deep-seated conviction about the necessary and "irresistible" comming of socialism. From this trauma is when Rosa Luxemburg wrote in 1915 in the pamphlet "Junius", this significantly revolutionary formula (in the theoretical and political sense at one time): "socialism or barbarism." This means: there is not only one "direction of development", one "sense of evolution," but several.And the role of the proletariat, led by his party, is not just "support", "short" or "accelerate" the historical process, but decide it.
"Men do not arbitrarily make history, but it is they who make it ... The final victory of the socialist proletariat ... not be fulfilled if the whole conditions accumulated by history doesn't spring the spark of conscious will of the great mass of people ... Friedrich Engels once said: bourgeois society is faced with a dilemma, or the progression towards socialism or the regression into barbarism ... We are today, then, exactly as Friedrich Engels had predicted a generation ago, 40 years ago, facing the choice: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, destruction, degeneration, a vast cemetery, or the victory of socialism, ie the conscious action of the international proletariat's struggle against imperialism and its method: the war. Here is the dilemma of world history, an alternative in which the scale vary with the decision of the conscious proletariat "(11).
What is the origin, in Marxist thought, of the words "socialism or barbarism"?
In the first sentence of the Manifesto, Marx stresses that the class struggle ends as ever, "or by a revolutionary upheaval of society, or the destruction (Untergang) of the classes in common struggle." It is probably this passage that inspired Rosa when talking about the fall of civilization in ancient Rome as a precedent for the return to barbarism. But there is, to our knowledge, no indication in any of Marx's work that this alternative, which he presented in the Manifesto as a verification of a past event, that it is also valid for him as a possibility for the future.
As to the phrase of Engels that Rosa Luxemburg referred to, it is indeed a passage from Anti-Duhring (published in 1877, which is almost about 40 years before that in which Rose wrote) that she was reconstituting by hart (not having access to her Marxist bibliotheque in the prison). Here, then, the text of Engels where the idea of socialism as an alternative in a great historical dilemma appeared for the first time: "... the productive forces produced by the modern capitalist mode of production as the system of distribution of goods by it created have come into a hurtful contradiction with that mode of production itself, until such a point that it is to be a subversion of the modes of production and distribution to eliminate all differences of class, if it is not that the entire modern society must perish (12).
The difference between the text by Rosa and that by Engels is obvious:
1) For Engels the problem is especially in economic terms, for Rosa, in political terms,
2) Engels doesn't raise the question of social forces to decide on one or other outcome: throughout the text he does not brings to stage but forces and relations of production. Rosa, however, emphasizes that conscious intervention of the proletariat which will "tip the balance" to one side or the other,
3) clearly there is the impression that the alternative posed by Engels is rather a rhetorical question, more than a demonstration ab absurdum of the necessity of socialism than a real alternative between socialism and the dying of modern society.
It seems, therefore, that in the last analysis, it was Rosa Luxembourg who (inspired by Engels) established explicitly for the first time, socialism not as the product of a "inevitable" historical necessity, but as an objective historical possibility . In this sense, the slogan "socialism or barbarism" means that, in history, the fate is not sealed. The "final victory" or the defeat of the proletariat are determined in advance by the "iron laws" of economic determinism but also depend on the conscious action of the revolutionary will of the proletariat.
What does "barbarism" mean in the Luxemburgist slogan? For Rosa, the world war itself was a sporadic form of returning to barbarism, destruction of civilization. It is therefore undeniable that for a whole generation in Germany and Europe, Rosa's forecasting tragically proved true: the failure of the socialist revolution in 1919 led, ultimately, to the triumph of Nazi barbarity and the Second War World.
However, in our view, the essential methodological elements in the slogan of the pamphlet "Junius" barbarism is not the only alternative to socialism, but the very principle of a historical alternative, the very principle of an "open" story in that socialism is a possibility among others. What is important, theoretically decisive in the formula, is not the "barbaric" but "socialism ..."
Does this mean that Rosa returns to the position of Bernstein, a moralistic conception of socialism as a mere abstract ethical option, that a "pure" ideal would be the sole basis, that swindle known under the name "the eternal principles of justice? In fact, the position of Rosa in 1915 is distintly, or rather, is diametrically opposed to the neo-Kantian revisionism, due to two crucial aspects:
1. Socialism for Rosa is not the ideal of an "absolute" humanism and above classes, but a class' moral, kind of a proletarian humanism, an ethics that is at the point of view of the revolutionary proletariat .
2. Above all, socialism is an objective possibility to Rosa, that is, founded on reality itself, on the internal contradictions of capitalism, on the crisis and the antagonism of class interests. They are the social and economic conditions that determine -ultimately and in a long-term, socialism as an objective possibility. They are the ones that draw the boundaries of the possible field: socialism is a real possibility from the nineteenth century, but it was not in the sixteenth, at the time of Thomas Munzer. Men make history, their history, but they do it within a framework determined by given conditions.
This category of objective possibility is imminently dialectic. Hegel uses it to criticize Kant (real chance against formal possibility) and Marx used it in his doctoral thesis to distinguish between the natural philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus: "the abstract possibility is precisely the opposite of the real possibility, the latter -as the reason- is enclosed within specific limits, the other -as the imagination- knows no limits. " The real possibility is to demonstrate the reality of its object; for the abstract possibility it is merely needed that this object be conceivable (13).
It is, therefore, because there are objective contradictions in the capitalist system and because it corresponds to the objective interests of the proletariat that socialism is a real possibility. The infrastructure, the specific historical circumstances determine what possibilities are real, but the decision between the various objective possibilities depends on consciousness, will and action of men.
The revolutionary praxis, the subjective factor, the conscious intervention of the masses, led by their vanguard, has now reached a completely different status in the theoretical system of Rosa. It is no longer a secondary element that has to "support" or "accelerate" the "irresistible march of society." This is not about the pace, but the direction of the historical process. The "animating spark of conscious will" is no longer a single factor "assistant", but the last word, which is decisive (14).
Only in 1915, the thought of Rosa becomes truly coherent. If one accepts the Kautskyite premise of the inevitability of socialism, it is difficult not to approach a political and passive waiting. While Rose did not justify his thesis on revolutionary action rather than by the need to "accelerate", what was inevitable anyway, Kautsky could easily report their strategy as "rebellious impatience" (rebellische Ungeduld). The final methodological break between Rosa Luxemburg and Kautsky does not occur until 1915, through the slogan "socialism or barbarism" (15).
Let us add that Lenin and Trotsky had an entirely likely theoretical development: under the traumatic impact of the collapse of the Second International, Lenin broke not only at a political level but also at a methodological level with Kautsky (of whom Lenin was considered until then a disciple). It is the discovery in 1914-15 of the Hegelian dialectic (the "Philosophical Notebooks") and the overcoming of common evolutionary materialism of Kautsky and Plekhanov, what constitutes the methodological premise of the Thesis of April 1917 (16). As for Trotsky, in his early writings, as in "Our Political Tasks" (1904), proclaims convinced "not only the inevitable growth of the political party of the proletariat, but also the inevitable victory of the ideas of revolutionary socialism within that party "(17), fatalistic naive hope was also cruelly disappoint in August 1914 months after the start of World War II, in a pamphlet published in Germany, "War and Internationale" (1914) brochure that was just read by Rosa-Luxemburg, and Trotsky posed the problem in other terms entirely different: "The capitalist world is facing the following alternative: either the permanent war ... or the proletarian revolution "(18). The methodological principle is the same as the Luxemburgist slogan, but the alternative is different and perhaps more realistic, in light of historical experience of the last fifty years (two world wars, two U.S. wars in Asia, etc.).
By attributing to the conscious will and to the action a key role in the decision of the historical process, Rosa Luxembourg does not deny in any way that this will and action are conditioned by all previous historical development, "the whole mass of material conditions accumulated by history." It is, however, about recognizing the subjective factor, the sphere of consciousness, the level of political intervention, partial autonomy, its specificity, its "internal logic" and its own effectiveness.
However, we believe that this understanding of the subjective role, voluntary and conscious, is precisely one of the main methodological assumptions of the theory of the party of Lenin, the foundation of his argument against the economists and the Mensheviks. Thus, despite all the undeniable differences that continue to exist even including after 1915, between Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin on the problematic party / mass, there is a real approach, both in practice (establishment of the Spartacus League) as in theory: the brochure "Junius" states explicitly that the revolutionary intervention of the proletariat, "taking over the helm of the society," will be "under the direction of social democracy." And of course it's not about the old international social democracy which failed miserably in 1914, but of a "new workers internationale", it would take "the leadership and coordination of the revolutionary class struggle against world imperialism" (19). The significant changes in the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg reveal a symptomatic fact: in a letter to Rosa, in 1916, Karl Liebknecht criticizes her conception of the Internationale as "too centralist and mechanical" with "too much" discipline ", and too little spontaneity, a distant and ironic echo of the criticisms that the very Rosa, in the past and in another context, had to Lenin (20).
Notas Notes
1- Cf. 1 - Cf G. G. Lukács, Histoire et conscience de classe , París, Minuit, pág. 61. Lukacs, Histoire et conscience of classe, Paris, Minuit, pp. 61. (Ed. esp., pág. 43) (Ed. esp., Pp. 43)
2- P. 2 - P. Frölich, Rosa Luxemburg , París, Maspero, pág. Frölich, Rosa Luxemburg, Paris, Maspero, pp. 275. 275.
3- Cf. Bernstein's article in defense of the neo-Kantian Vörland and against the "madness" of the leftist Panekoek in Dokumente des Sozialismus, III, pp. 487 487
4- Rosa Luxemburgo, Scritti politici , pág. 4 - Rosa Luxemburg, Scritti politici, pp. 187. 187. (Ed. esp.; Reforma o revolución , pág. 79). (Ed. esp., Reform or Revolution, pp. 79).
5- Ibid ., págs. 5 - Ibid., Pp. 148-149, highlighted by us. (Ed. esp., pág. 15) (Ed. esp., P. 15.)
6- Ibid , pág. 6 - Ibid. 172. 172.
7- Kautsky had already been in his youth an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and his latest work, The materialist conception of history (1927), still proclaims that its purpose is to find laws that are common to "human evolution, animal and plant. "See Erich Mathias, Kautsky und der kautskyanismus, Marxismusstudien, 2, 1957, pp. 153.
8- Kautsky, Der Weg zur Match , 1910, 3 Auflage, Berlín 19, pág . 57. Cf. 8 - Kautsky, Der Weg zur Match, 1910, 3 Auflage, Berlin 19, p. 57.. Cf Also the Erfurt program of the German Social Democratic Party (1891), edited by Kautsky and presents socialism as a "naturnotwendiges Ziel", an end result of a "natural necessity."
9- Address to the 1907 International Congress in Stuttgart in L. Basso, Introducción a Scritti politici , pág. Basso, Introduction to Scritti politici, pp. 85. 85.
10- Article 1913 of Rosa Luxembourg against the "strategy of exhaustion" of Kautsky in Frolich, op., Pp. 185.
11- Rosa Luxemburgo, Scritti politici , págs. 11 - Rosa Luxemburg, Scritti politici, pp. 446-448. 446-448.
12- Engels, Anti-Duhring , París, Sociales, 1950, pág. 12 - Engels, Anti-Duhring, Paris, Social, 1950, pp. 189, destacado por nosotros. 189, stood out for us. (Ed. esp. México, Grijalbo, 1964, pág. 150,) Cf. También pág. (Ed. esp. Mexico, Grijalbo, 1964, pp. 150) See also pp. 197 (pág. 158): “... 197 (p. 158): "... their own productive forces has exceeded the scope of its direction and push the entire bourgeois society, as with natural necessity, to ruin or subversion. "
13- Marx, “Differenz der demokritischen und epikurischen Naturphilosophie”, en Texte zu Methode und Praxis , I, Rohwolt, 1966, pág.144. 13 - Marx, "demokritischen und der Differenza epikurischen Naturphilosophie" in Texte zu Methode und Praxis, I, Rohwolt, 1966, pág.144. In Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness, the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat appears just below the conceptual form of an objective possibility.
14- Cf. 14 - Cf Basso, Op. Basso, Op Cit ., pág . 48 Cit., Pp. 48
15- En 1915, la fe de Rosa en el porvenir de la humanidad se presenta, pues, en cierta medida, al modo de la apuesta pascaliana: riesgo, posibilidad de fracaso, esperanza de éxito, en un “juego” en el que se compromete la vida por un valor transindividual. 15 - In 1915, Rosa's faith in the future of humanity is presented, then, to some extent, so the Pascalian bet: risk, possibility of failure, hope of success, a "game" in which life committed trans-worth. La diferencia con Pascal está, naturalmente: a) en el contenido de ese valor, yb) en su fundamentación objetiva en Rosa Luxemburgo. Véase al respecto Lucien Goldmann, Le dieu caché , París, Gallimard, 1955, págs. Pascal The difference is, of course: a) the content of that value, and b) in its objective foundation in Luxemburg. Subject, see Lucien Goldmann, Le Dieu cache, Paris, Gallimard, 1955, pp. 333-337 (hay ed. esp.), quien compara la apuesta pascaliana con la apuesta marxista. 333-337 (no ed. Esp.), Who compares the bet with the bet Pascalian Marxist.
16- Cf. 16 In this regard our chapter: "From the very logic of Hegel Finland Station in Petrograd" in this same book, pp. 117-137. 117-137.
17- Trotsky, Nos Taches politiques , París, Pierre Belfond, 1970, pág. 17 - Trotsky, we're targeted politiques, Paris, Pierre Belfond, 1970, pp. 186 .
18- The age of permanent revolution, a Trotsky Anthology , Nueva York, Laurel, pág . 79 18 - The age of permanent revolution, Trotsky Anthology, New York, Laurel, pp. 79
19- Rosa Luxemburgo, Scritti politici , págs. 19 - Rosa Luxemburg, Scritti politici, pp. 446-450. 446-450.
20- Karl Liebknecht, “A Rosa Luxemburg – Remarques a propos de son projet de theses pour le groupe 'Internationale'”, en Partisans, París, Nº 45, enero 1969, pág. 20 - Karl Liebknecht, "A Rosa Luxemburg - Remarques a propos de son projet de thèse pour le groupe 'Internationale', in Partisans, Paris, No. 45, January 1969, pp. 113. 113.
(my translation, original in Spanish)
By Michael Löwy *
* Brazilian-born sociologist and director of Research Center of Paris. This article is Chapter VI of the book Dialectics and Revolution, Mexico, Siglo XXI, 1978. This version is published with the permission of the author.
In a thorough and penetrating analysis, the renowned Marxist sociologist realizes the "moralistic" and "deterministic" deformations of the conception of socialism, which had their origin in social democracy of the late nineteenth century but the influence of it was felt throughout the twentieth century. Against the historical fatalism about the inevitability of socialism, now its back again as its contrary: the impossibility of it, Löwy is based on the evolution of thought of Rosa Luxemburg and the best of revolutionary Marxism to claim the enormous historical actuality of this alternative, and the place of subjectivity, of a story where men are able to choose their destiny and to impose it.
Is socialism inevitable and a necessary product of historical development, economically determined, or is merely a moral choice, an ideal of justice and freedom? This "dilemma of powerlessness" among the fatalism of the pure laws and the ethics of pure intention (1) was the dilemma of the German Social Democracy before 1914. It was surpassed -in a dialectical sense, "Aufheben"- by Rosa Luxemburg, precisely through the formulation in the "Junius" pamphlet of 1915 of the famous slogan "socialism or barbarism." In this sense, Paul Frölich was right when he wrote that the pamphlet (whatever they may be their mistakes and shortcomings, criticized by Lenin) "is more than a historic monument: it is an Ariadne's thread in the present chaos" (2). We will try broadly to clarify the methodological significance of this slogan, meaning that we attach paramount importance to Marxist thought, but it was not always sufficiently understood and evaluated.
For Bernstein, after his "revision" of Marxism in The Premises of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy (1899), socialism no longer has an objective, material basis in the contradictions of capitalism and the class struggle ( phenomena whose denial is precisely the theme of the book.) He looked, therefore, another foundation, which can only be ethical: the eternal principles of morality, law, justice. In this sense in which we must understand the last chapter of the book (Kant wider Kant), which opposes Kant to "materialism" and "the contempt for the ideal" of the official social democratic thinking. This moral is obviously completely ahistorical and above classes. Para Bernstein, en efecto, “La moral sublime de Kant” se halla “en la base de las acciones eternas y universalmente humanas”; For Bernstein, in effect, "Kant's sublime morality" is "on the basis of the eternal and universal human actions"; finding in them an expression of something so rude and vulgar as the class interests of the bourgeoisie would be in his opinion simply "crazy" (3).
In Reform or Revolution (1899), Rosa Luxembourg answers to the "father of revisionism" with a passionate and rigorous demonstration of the deeply contradictory nature of capitalist development. Socialism derives from economic necessity and, in no way from this "old warhorse on which all reformers have ridden for centuries ..." (4).
However, wanting to take too much out this demonstration, Rosa is not always free from the temptation of "revolutionary fatalism", for example, by insisting on the first chapter of the anti-Bernstein brochure that the anarchy of the capitalist economy "drags it to inevitable ruin", the collapse of the capitalist system is the inevitable result of its insurmountable contradictions, and that the proletarian class consciousness is nothing more than "mere intellectual reflection of the growing contradictions of capitalism and its imminent collapse" ( 5). Of course, even at this writing, her most "deterministic" one, Rosa insists that the tactics of social democracy is not in any way awaiting the development of the antagonisms, but to "lean in the direction, once recognized, of the development and take up the consequences to the end"(6). This, however, does not really solve the problem, as Rosa still starts from the premise that there is in the final analysis, only one direction possible, "the direction of development." The awareness intervention of socialdemocracy remains, then, in a sense, an "assistant" element, a "stimulating" of a process, however, it is objectively necessary and inevitable.
If the "optimistic fatalism" of Rosa Luxemburg is, in 1899, a temptation, however, for Karl Kautsky it is the centerpiece of his entire worldview. Kautsky's thought is the product of a wonderfully merger achieved between metaphysics Enlightenment progress, social Darwinist evolutionism (7) and a seudo-"orthodox Marxist" determinism. The immense power of persuasion that this amalgam had on the German Social Democracy, making Kautsky the "Pope" of the doctrine of the Party and the Second International, it was not due solely to the author's undeniable talent, but also and above all to a particular historic situation, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during which the number of members and voters of social democracy increased with extraordinary regularity.
In Kautsky, therefore, the problem of the revolutionary initiative tends to disappear in favor of the "iron laws that determine the necessary transformation of society." In his most important book, The Road to Power (1909), repeatedly insists on the idea that the proletarian revolution is "irresistible" and "inevitable", "so irresistible and inevitable as is the continued development of capitalism," which leads him to this amazing conclusion, to this remarkable and transparent phrase that sums up all his vision admirably "expectant" of the story: "The revolutionary socialist party is not a party which does revolutions. We know our ends can not be met but by a revolution, but we also know that is not in our power to make the revolution, as it is not in the power of our adversaries to stop it.Therefore, we have never thought to cause or make a revolution "(8).
Especially after the 1905 Russian Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg began to pull away and criticize politically Kautsky increasingly "rigid and fatalistic" conception of Marxism which consists in "waiting with folded arms for the historical dialectic bringing us the ripe fruit (9). By 1909-1913, the polemic with Kautsky on the mass strike crystallized latent theoretical differences within the orthodox Marxist German Socialdemocracy. Apparently, the criticism of Rosa mainly aims to the purely parliamentarian character of the "strategy of exhaustion" (Ermattungstrategie) advocated by Kautsky. But on a deeper level, it's all the "passive radicalism" of Kautsky (Pannekoek dixit), his pseudorevolutionary fatalism which is subject to discussion by Rosa. Against this theory of expectation, in which stubborn faith in the "inevitable" parliamentary election victory was but one of the political demonstrations, Rosa develops its strategy of mass strike founded on the principle of conscious intervention: "The mission of social democracy and its leaders is not to be swept away by events, but getting ahead of them consciously, covering with his eyes the direction of the evolution and shorten this development by a conscious action, and accelerating their progress "(10 .)
However, until 1914 the break is not complete with Kautsky and the "socialist fatalism." As demonstrated by the passage just quoted, for Rose there is no more than one "sense of evolution," it is only for "shorting" and "speeding." It took the catastrophe of August 4, 1914, the shameful capitulation of German social democracy to the war policy of the Kaiser, the dislocation of the International and the enlistment of the proletarian masses in that vast fratricidal slaughter called "First World War" to make Rosa hesitate about the advent of deep-seated conviction about the necessary and "irresistible" comming of socialism. From this trauma is when Rosa Luxemburg wrote in 1915 in the pamphlet "Junius", this significantly revolutionary formula (in the theoretical and political sense at one time): "socialism or barbarism." This means: there is not only one "direction of development", one "sense of evolution," but several.And the role of the proletariat, led by his party, is not just "support", "short" or "accelerate" the historical process, but decide it.
"Men do not arbitrarily make history, but it is they who make it ... The final victory of the socialist proletariat ... not be fulfilled if the whole conditions accumulated by history doesn't spring the spark of conscious will of the great mass of people ... Friedrich Engels once said: bourgeois society is faced with a dilemma, or the progression towards socialism or the regression into barbarism ... We are today, then, exactly as Friedrich Engels had predicted a generation ago, 40 years ago, facing the choice: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of civilization as in ancient Rome, depopulation, destruction, degeneration, a vast cemetery, or the victory of socialism, ie the conscious action of the international proletariat's struggle against imperialism and its method: the war. Here is the dilemma of world history, an alternative in which the scale vary with the decision of the conscious proletariat "(11).
What is the origin, in Marxist thought, of the words "socialism or barbarism"?
In the first sentence of the Manifesto, Marx stresses that the class struggle ends as ever, "or by a revolutionary upheaval of society, or the destruction (Untergang) of the classes in common struggle." It is probably this passage that inspired Rosa when talking about the fall of civilization in ancient Rome as a precedent for the return to barbarism. But there is, to our knowledge, no indication in any of Marx's work that this alternative, which he presented in the Manifesto as a verification of a past event, that it is also valid for him as a possibility for the future.
As to the phrase of Engels that Rosa Luxemburg referred to, it is indeed a passage from Anti-Duhring (published in 1877, which is almost about 40 years before that in which Rose wrote) that she was reconstituting by hart (not having access to her Marxist bibliotheque in the prison). Here, then, the text of Engels where the idea of socialism as an alternative in a great historical dilemma appeared for the first time: "... the productive forces produced by the modern capitalist mode of production as the system of distribution of goods by it created have come into a hurtful contradiction with that mode of production itself, until such a point that it is to be a subversion of the modes of production and distribution to eliminate all differences of class, if it is not that the entire modern society must perish (12).
The difference between the text by Rosa and that by Engels is obvious:
1) For Engels the problem is especially in economic terms, for Rosa, in political terms,
2) Engels doesn't raise the question of social forces to decide on one or other outcome: throughout the text he does not brings to stage but forces and relations of production. Rosa, however, emphasizes that conscious intervention of the proletariat which will "tip the balance" to one side or the other,
3) clearly there is the impression that the alternative posed by Engels is rather a rhetorical question, more than a demonstration ab absurdum of the necessity of socialism than a real alternative between socialism and the dying of modern society.
It seems, therefore, that in the last analysis, it was Rosa Luxembourg who (inspired by Engels) established explicitly for the first time, socialism not as the product of a "inevitable" historical necessity, but as an objective historical possibility . In this sense, the slogan "socialism or barbarism" means that, in history, the fate is not sealed. The "final victory" or the defeat of the proletariat are determined in advance by the "iron laws" of economic determinism but also depend on the conscious action of the revolutionary will of the proletariat.
What does "barbarism" mean in the Luxemburgist slogan? For Rosa, the world war itself was a sporadic form of returning to barbarism, destruction of civilization. It is therefore undeniable that for a whole generation in Germany and Europe, Rosa's forecasting tragically proved true: the failure of the socialist revolution in 1919 led, ultimately, to the triumph of Nazi barbarity and the Second War World.
However, in our view, the essential methodological elements in the slogan of the pamphlet "Junius" barbarism is not the only alternative to socialism, but the very principle of a historical alternative, the very principle of an "open" story in that socialism is a possibility among others. What is important, theoretically decisive in the formula, is not the "barbaric" but "socialism ..."
Does this mean that Rosa returns to the position of Bernstein, a moralistic conception of socialism as a mere abstract ethical option, that a "pure" ideal would be the sole basis, that swindle known under the name "the eternal principles of justice? In fact, the position of Rosa in 1915 is distintly, or rather, is diametrically opposed to the neo-Kantian revisionism, due to two crucial aspects:
1. Socialism for Rosa is not the ideal of an "absolute" humanism and above classes, but a class' moral, kind of a proletarian humanism, an ethics that is at the point of view of the revolutionary proletariat .
2. Above all, socialism is an objective possibility to Rosa, that is, founded on reality itself, on the internal contradictions of capitalism, on the crisis and the antagonism of class interests. They are the social and economic conditions that determine -ultimately and in a long-term, socialism as an objective possibility. They are the ones that draw the boundaries of the possible field: socialism is a real possibility from the nineteenth century, but it was not in the sixteenth, at the time of Thomas Munzer. Men make history, their history, but they do it within a framework determined by given conditions.
This category of objective possibility is imminently dialectic. Hegel uses it to criticize Kant (real chance against formal possibility) and Marx used it in his doctoral thesis to distinguish between the natural philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus: "the abstract possibility is precisely the opposite of the real possibility, the latter -as the reason- is enclosed within specific limits, the other -as the imagination- knows no limits. " The real possibility is to demonstrate the reality of its object; for the abstract possibility it is merely needed that this object be conceivable (13).
It is, therefore, because there are objective contradictions in the capitalist system and because it corresponds to the objective interests of the proletariat that socialism is a real possibility. The infrastructure, the specific historical circumstances determine what possibilities are real, but the decision between the various objective possibilities depends on consciousness, will and action of men.
The revolutionary praxis, the subjective factor, the conscious intervention of the masses, led by their vanguard, has now reached a completely different status in the theoretical system of Rosa. It is no longer a secondary element that has to "support" or "accelerate" the "irresistible march of society." This is not about the pace, but the direction of the historical process. The "animating spark of conscious will" is no longer a single factor "assistant", but the last word, which is decisive (14).
Only in 1915, the thought of Rosa becomes truly coherent. If one accepts the Kautskyite premise of the inevitability of socialism, it is difficult not to approach a political and passive waiting. While Rose did not justify his thesis on revolutionary action rather than by the need to "accelerate", what was inevitable anyway, Kautsky could easily report their strategy as "rebellious impatience" (rebellische Ungeduld). The final methodological break between Rosa Luxemburg and Kautsky does not occur until 1915, through the slogan "socialism or barbarism" (15).
Let us add that Lenin and Trotsky had an entirely likely theoretical development: under the traumatic impact of the collapse of the Second International, Lenin broke not only at a political level but also at a methodological level with Kautsky (of whom Lenin was considered until then a disciple). It is the discovery in 1914-15 of the Hegelian dialectic (the "Philosophical Notebooks") and the overcoming of common evolutionary materialism of Kautsky and Plekhanov, what constitutes the methodological premise of the Thesis of April 1917 (16). As for Trotsky, in his early writings, as in "Our Political Tasks" (1904), proclaims convinced "not only the inevitable growth of the political party of the proletariat, but also the inevitable victory of the ideas of revolutionary socialism within that party "(17), fatalistic naive hope was also cruelly disappoint in August 1914 months after the start of World War II, in a pamphlet published in Germany, "War and Internationale" (1914) brochure that was just read by Rosa-Luxemburg, and Trotsky posed the problem in other terms entirely different: "The capitalist world is facing the following alternative: either the permanent war ... or the proletarian revolution "(18). The methodological principle is the same as the Luxemburgist slogan, but the alternative is different and perhaps more realistic, in light of historical experience of the last fifty years (two world wars, two U.S. wars in Asia, etc.).
By attributing to the conscious will and to the action a key role in the decision of the historical process, Rosa Luxembourg does not deny in any way that this will and action are conditioned by all previous historical development, "the whole mass of material conditions accumulated by history." It is, however, about recognizing the subjective factor, the sphere of consciousness, the level of political intervention, partial autonomy, its specificity, its "internal logic" and its own effectiveness.
However, we believe that this understanding of the subjective role, voluntary and conscious, is precisely one of the main methodological assumptions of the theory of the party of Lenin, the foundation of his argument against the economists and the Mensheviks. Thus, despite all the undeniable differences that continue to exist even including after 1915, between Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin on the problematic party / mass, there is a real approach, both in practice (establishment of the Spartacus League) as in theory: the brochure "Junius" states explicitly that the revolutionary intervention of the proletariat, "taking over the helm of the society," will be "under the direction of social democracy." And of course it's not about the old international social democracy which failed miserably in 1914, but of a "new workers internationale", it would take "the leadership and coordination of the revolutionary class struggle against world imperialism" (19). The significant changes in the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg reveal a symptomatic fact: in a letter to Rosa, in 1916, Karl Liebknecht criticizes her conception of the Internationale as "too centralist and mechanical" with "too much" discipline ", and too little spontaneity, a distant and ironic echo of the criticisms that the very Rosa, in the past and in another context, had to Lenin (20).
Notas Notes
1- Cf. 1 - Cf G. G. Lukács, Histoire et conscience de classe , París, Minuit, pág. 61. Lukacs, Histoire et conscience of classe, Paris, Minuit, pp. 61. (Ed. esp., pág. 43) (Ed. esp., Pp. 43)
2- P. 2 - P. Frölich, Rosa Luxemburg , París, Maspero, pág. Frölich, Rosa Luxemburg, Paris, Maspero, pp. 275. 275.
3- Cf. Bernstein's article in defense of the neo-Kantian Vörland and against the "madness" of the leftist Panekoek in Dokumente des Sozialismus, III, pp. 487 487
4- Rosa Luxemburgo, Scritti politici , pág. 4 - Rosa Luxemburg, Scritti politici, pp. 187. 187. (Ed. esp.; Reforma o revolución , pág. 79). (Ed. esp., Reform or Revolution, pp. 79).
5- Ibid ., págs. 5 - Ibid., Pp. 148-149, highlighted by us. (Ed. esp., pág. 15) (Ed. esp., P. 15.)
6- Ibid , pág. 6 - Ibid. 172. 172.
7- Kautsky had already been in his youth an enthusiastic follower of Darwin and his latest work, The materialist conception of history (1927), still proclaims that its purpose is to find laws that are common to "human evolution, animal and plant. "See Erich Mathias, Kautsky und der kautskyanismus, Marxismusstudien, 2, 1957, pp. 153.
8- Kautsky, Der Weg zur Match , 1910, 3 Auflage, Berlín 19, pág . 57. Cf. 8 - Kautsky, Der Weg zur Match, 1910, 3 Auflage, Berlin 19, p. 57.. Cf Also the Erfurt program of the German Social Democratic Party (1891), edited by Kautsky and presents socialism as a "naturnotwendiges Ziel", an end result of a "natural necessity."
9- Address to the 1907 International Congress in Stuttgart in L. Basso, Introducción a Scritti politici , pág. Basso, Introduction to Scritti politici, pp. 85. 85.
10- Article 1913 of Rosa Luxembourg against the "strategy of exhaustion" of Kautsky in Frolich, op., Pp. 185.
11- Rosa Luxemburgo, Scritti politici , págs. 11 - Rosa Luxemburg, Scritti politici, pp. 446-448. 446-448.
12- Engels, Anti-Duhring , París, Sociales, 1950, pág. 12 - Engels, Anti-Duhring, Paris, Social, 1950, pp. 189, destacado por nosotros. 189, stood out for us. (Ed. esp. México, Grijalbo, 1964, pág. 150,) Cf. También pág. (Ed. esp. Mexico, Grijalbo, 1964, pp. 150) See also pp. 197 (pág. 158): “... 197 (p. 158): "... their own productive forces has exceeded the scope of its direction and push the entire bourgeois society, as with natural necessity, to ruin or subversion. "
13- Marx, “Differenz der demokritischen und epikurischen Naturphilosophie”, en Texte zu Methode und Praxis , I, Rohwolt, 1966, pág.144. 13 - Marx, "demokritischen und der Differenza epikurischen Naturphilosophie" in Texte zu Methode und Praxis, I, Rohwolt, 1966, pág.144. In Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness, the revolutionary consciousness of the proletariat appears just below the conceptual form of an objective possibility.
14- Cf. 14 - Cf Basso, Op. Basso, Op Cit ., pág . 48 Cit., Pp. 48
15- En 1915, la fe de Rosa en el porvenir de la humanidad se presenta, pues, en cierta medida, al modo de la apuesta pascaliana: riesgo, posibilidad de fracaso, esperanza de éxito, en un “juego” en el que se compromete la vida por un valor transindividual. 15 - In 1915, Rosa's faith in the future of humanity is presented, then, to some extent, so the Pascalian bet: risk, possibility of failure, hope of success, a "game" in which life committed trans-worth. La diferencia con Pascal está, naturalmente: a) en el contenido de ese valor, yb) en su fundamentación objetiva en Rosa Luxemburgo. Véase al respecto Lucien Goldmann, Le dieu caché , París, Gallimard, 1955, págs. Pascal The difference is, of course: a) the content of that value, and b) in its objective foundation in Luxemburg. Subject, see Lucien Goldmann, Le Dieu cache, Paris, Gallimard, 1955, pp. 333-337 (hay ed. esp.), quien compara la apuesta pascaliana con la apuesta marxista. 333-337 (no ed. Esp.), Who compares the bet with the bet Pascalian Marxist.
16- Cf. 16 In this regard our chapter: "From the very logic of Hegel Finland Station in Petrograd" in this same book, pp. 117-137. 117-137.
17- Trotsky, Nos Taches politiques , París, Pierre Belfond, 1970, pág. 17 - Trotsky, we're targeted politiques, Paris, Pierre Belfond, 1970, pp. 186 .
18- The age of permanent revolution, a Trotsky Anthology , Nueva York, Laurel, pág . 79 18 - The age of permanent revolution, Trotsky Anthology, New York, Laurel, pp. 79
19- Rosa Luxemburgo, Scritti politici , págs. 19 - Rosa Luxemburg, Scritti politici, pp. 446-450. 446-450.
20- Karl Liebknecht, “A Rosa Luxemburg – Remarques a propos de son projet de theses pour le groupe 'Internationale'”, en Partisans, París, Nº 45, enero 1969, pág. 20 - Karl Liebknecht, "A Rosa Luxemburg - Remarques a propos de son projet de thèse pour le groupe 'Internationale', in Partisans, Paris, No. 45, January 1969, pp. 113. 113.