Entrails Konfetti
10th October 2005, 20:56
I've been reading Rosa Luxemburg by Paul Frolich.
I still don't fully understand why it didn't take off.
Some key parts I underlined:
This refers to the USDP and the Spartakusbund. UDSP wanted a revolutionwith out upheaval, and the Spartbund was only organization in germany that wanted to go whole hog with the revolution.
The working-class movement was extraordinarily divided, and the various groups were at quite different stages of theoretical development.
Explains the organization.
However, both a revolutionary organ and a revolutionary organization were urgently necessary. The Spartakusbund was still rudimentary, and consisted cheifly of innumerable small and almost autonomus groups
So it was a decentralized organization, that doesn't really explain why the only revolutionary organization was a flop.
This refers to the working masses walking over to the left and the relation it had on the councils.
However,this advance took place on an elementary level,under the pressure of direct expiriences and all its politicial consequences were not immediately realised.The effects of the reciprocal relationship between the economic and the political struggle were not felt one right after the other. In particular, the increasing militancy of the masses.
I don't understand why its important for the masses to recognize economic struggle and political struggle one right after the other, or why they can't recognize such a thing simultaniously.
About the first national congress of the workers' and soliders' councils in Berlin on December 1918:
The congress represented the attitude of the masses in the first days of the revolution, but that was all, and it lacked even the great hearted illusions of those first days. It represented the past, not the present; the backward and middle sized towns rather that the big towns and the most important industrial areas .In political character it was more an Upper House than a People's Parliment of the working class. There were 489 delegates present, of whom 288 were Social Democrats, 80 Independents, and only 10 Spartakus followers.
So, the congress was mostly backward thinking, and this mainly affected the revolution, were their actions wrong ? Or was there not a general agreement among the assembly?
A central council was set up ostensibly to control the national and the Prussian Governments, but in reality it was mearly a fig leaf for their dictatorial policies. The elections for the national assembly were fixed for 19th of january 1919. With this the workers' and soldiers' concils commited political suicide and surrendered their keys to power
Its not explained in the book how this signed the death warrant of the revolution.
About the German Communist Party:
It was a loose organisation numbeing several thousand members during the war. Its core was the old left wing of social democracy, an elite well grounded in Marxism and schooled in the tactical ideas of Rosa Luxemburg
Does this bear any significance?
About affliation with Spartakusbund and the objective conditions that resulted:
Apart from the Spartakusbund there was a group of Left Radicals with its centre in Bremen, and branches in North Germany, Saxony, and the Rhineland...it was in general agreement with the Spartakusbund on fundemantal principles, but from the beginning it was more closely associated with the Bolsheviks...minor disagreements on tactical matters had prevented organisational amalgamation.
The Left wing of the German working class movement was thus not organisationally prepared for the great tasks of revolutionary period, and, before long, amalgamation and the formation of a centrally organised political party became urgently necessary as the only means of giving the spontaneous revolutionary movement throughout the country an organisational backbone and common direction
I still don't understand why there wasn't a general sense of direction.
About the question reguarding to take part in the NA or not:
In the meantime the struggle between revolution and counter revolution was approaching its climax, and the creation of an efficient party became the need of the hour
The most important question to be decided was whether the new party should take part in the National Assembly elections or not.
Although the purpose of the National Assembly would be to consolodate the power of the new bourgeois regime, she (Rosa Luxemburg) maintained that the work of the socialists within it now could not have the same character as the earlier parlimentary activity and could therefore not aim at mere reforms within the capitalist system
How the Majority of Delegates in the NA forsaw the victory of the revolution:
The majority was so certain of the victory of the German Revolution that participatiob in parlimentary eections appeared as a highly doubtful detour--or even worse. In vain did Rosa Luxemburg warn the delegates against underestimating the diffuculties ahead, against counting on a quick and easy victory, and against neglecting any means of winning adherents.
How the Spartakus programs saw the role of the proletariat in the revolution:
The proletarian revolution could fights its way foward only by stages, step by step, along a road to calvary to paved with bitter experiences, through defeat after defeat-to final victory.
Correct me if im wrong,so what happened was that trhe Spartakus program decided to join the NA, but only that it would look for different measures and not reform. However, the Sparts and all the workers councils got mixed up and ignored within the short sighted reformists that led to the demise of the German Revolution.
I still don't fully understand why it didn't take off.
Some key parts I underlined:
This refers to the USDP and the Spartakusbund. UDSP wanted a revolutionwith out upheaval, and the Spartbund was only organization in germany that wanted to go whole hog with the revolution.
The working-class movement was extraordinarily divided, and the various groups were at quite different stages of theoretical development.
Explains the organization.
However, both a revolutionary organ and a revolutionary organization were urgently necessary. The Spartakusbund was still rudimentary, and consisted cheifly of innumerable small and almost autonomus groups
So it was a decentralized organization, that doesn't really explain why the only revolutionary organization was a flop.
This refers to the working masses walking over to the left and the relation it had on the councils.
However,this advance took place on an elementary level,under the pressure of direct expiriences and all its politicial consequences were not immediately realised.The effects of the reciprocal relationship between the economic and the political struggle were not felt one right after the other. In particular, the increasing militancy of the masses.
I don't understand why its important for the masses to recognize economic struggle and political struggle one right after the other, or why they can't recognize such a thing simultaniously.
About the first national congress of the workers' and soliders' councils in Berlin on December 1918:
The congress represented the attitude of the masses in the first days of the revolution, but that was all, and it lacked even the great hearted illusions of those first days. It represented the past, not the present; the backward and middle sized towns rather that the big towns and the most important industrial areas .In political character it was more an Upper House than a People's Parliment of the working class. There were 489 delegates present, of whom 288 were Social Democrats, 80 Independents, and only 10 Spartakus followers.
So, the congress was mostly backward thinking, and this mainly affected the revolution, were their actions wrong ? Or was there not a general agreement among the assembly?
A central council was set up ostensibly to control the national and the Prussian Governments, but in reality it was mearly a fig leaf for their dictatorial policies. The elections for the national assembly were fixed for 19th of january 1919. With this the workers' and soldiers' concils commited political suicide and surrendered their keys to power
Its not explained in the book how this signed the death warrant of the revolution.
About the German Communist Party:
It was a loose organisation numbeing several thousand members during the war. Its core was the old left wing of social democracy, an elite well grounded in Marxism and schooled in the tactical ideas of Rosa Luxemburg
Does this bear any significance?
About affliation with Spartakusbund and the objective conditions that resulted:
Apart from the Spartakusbund there was a group of Left Radicals with its centre in Bremen, and branches in North Germany, Saxony, and the Rhineland...it was in general agreement with the Spartakusbund on fundemantal principles, but from the beginning it was more closely associated with the Bolsheviks...minor disagreements on tactical matters had prevented organisational amalgamation.
The Left wing of the German working class movement was thus not organisationally prepared for the great tasks of revolutionary period, and, before long, amalgamation and the formation of a centrally organised political party became urgently necessary as the only means of giving the spontaneous revolutionary movement throughout the country an organisational backbone and common direction
I still don't understand why there wasn't a general sense of direction.
About the question reguarding to take part in the NA or not:
In the meantime the struggle between revolution and counter revolution was approaching its climax, and the creation of an efficient party became the need of the hour
The most important question to be decided was whether the new party should take part in the National Assembly elections or not.
Although the purpose of the National Assembly would be to consolodate the power of the new bourgeois regime, she (Rosa Luxemburg) maintained that the work of the socialists within it now could not have the same character as the earlier parlimentary activity and could therefore not aim at mere reforms within the capitalist system
How the Majority of Delegates in the NA forsaw the victory of the revolution:
The majority was so certain of the victory of the German Revolution that participatiob in parlimentary eections appeared as a highly doubtful detour--or even worse. In vain did Rosa Luxemburg warn the delegates against underestimating the diffuculties ahead, against counting on a quick and easy victory, and against neglecting any means of winning adherents.
How the Spartakus programs saw the role of the proletariat in the revolution:
The proletarian revolution could fights its way foward only by stages, step by step, along a road to calvary to paved with bitter experiences, through defeat after defeat-to final victory.
Correct me if im wrong,so what happened was that trhe Spartakus program decided to join the NA, but only that it would look for different measures and not reform. However, the Sparts and all the workers councils got mixed up and ignored within the short sighted reformists that led to the demise of the German Revolution.