Rosa Luxemburg & "Luxemburgism"

[Revy]

What's your opinion on it? Was she anti-Leninist, pro-Leninist? Both sides seem to want to claim her.

Though Luxemburgism seems to be a very small movement. Only one party in the world, a party in France called Communist Democracy, follows Luxemburgism explicitly.

What are some of your own criticisms of Luxemburg ? What do you think she was wrong about?

[Yehuda Stern]

I think Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary who made several theoretical mistakes, and that these mistakes were paid for by her and by German workers in the loss of a revolutionary opportunity. I don't agree with her positions on the national question or the model for the revolutionary party. Other than that, despite her mistakes, I think she was a real Marxist revolutionary and that she did belong in the Third International.

Luxemburgism, however, tends to go lower than that. Luxemburgist groups I've been in contact with were usually sectarian and pretty, nevermind very anti-Trotskyist. But I don't know anymore about those groups than just passing experience.

[Tower of Bebel]

Well, she was a brilliant dialectician; but she wasn't involved with party-building. I think that the way people look to her theory of spontaneity is somewhat exaggerated. She and Lenin had much in common; and the differences that arose between her and Lenin are to be seen in the same polemical context as the disputes between Lenin and Trotsky.

So I don't really have an idea of what Luxemburgism would be; yet I think it is a "left-communist" interpretation of Rosa Luxemburg's ideas.

[Yehuda Stern]

Didn't Luxemburg oppose dialectics? I thought that's why the board's most prominent anti-Hegelian has adopted a similar name.

[zimmerwald1915]

I think Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary who made several theoretical mistakes, and that these mistakes were paid for by her and by German workers in the loss of a revolutionary opportunity. I don't agree with her positions on the national question or the model for the revolutionary party. Other than that, despite her mistakes, I think she was a real Marxist revolutionary and that she did belong in the Third International.
I would say that her position on the national question has proved correct...

[Yehuda Stern]

I honestly don't see how.

[zimmerwald1915]

I honestly don't see how.
Take a look at the history of Finland post-1917 and you'll see what I mean.

[Yehuda Stern]

I think the point of a debate forum is to, you know, debate your point of view. Otherwise it would've been a vague referral forum.

[Tower of Bebel]

Didn't Luxemburg oppose dialectics? I thought that's why the board's most prominent anti-Hegelian has adopted a similar name.
It would surprise me if that were true. Because, as you can see, her most famous theory, called the "Dialectic of spontaneity and organization", is an interpretation of the dialectical relations within the workers' movement. Also, her letters on the Russian Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/index.htm) are, I think, the best interpretation of the dialectic relations between the Russian Revolution and the German Revolution; the relation between democracy and dictatorship; and the relation between base- and superstructure (capitalism and government)

An example (http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/rosa-luxemburg/dialectic-of-spontaneity-and-organization.html):

The central feature of her thought was the Dialectic of Spontaneity and Organization, in which spontaneity can be considered akin to a "grass roots" (or even anarchistic) approach, and organisation to a more bureaucratic or party-institutional approach to the class struggle. According to this Dialectic, spontaneity and organization are not two separable or even separate things, but rather different moments of the same process, so that one cannot exist without the other. These theoretical insights arise from the elementary and spontaneous class struggle; and through these insights, the class struggle develops to a higher level.

[Yehuda Stern]

Didn't know that, thanks for the info.

[Valeofruin]

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1913/03.htm

*sigh* what are we to do?

[LUXEMBURGUISTA]

What's your opinion on it? Was she anti-Leninist, pro-Leninist? Both sides seem to want to claim her.

Though Luxemburgism seems to be a very small movement. Only one party in the world, a party in France called Communist Democracy, follows Luxemburgism explicitly.

What are some of your own criticisms of Luxemburg ? What do you think she was wrong about?

You can see some debates on these questions in the International Luxemburgist Forum (http://luxemburgism.forumr.net/portal.htm) I posted my opinions in a reply to an answer on the differences between Trostskysm and Luxemburgism (http://luxemburgism.forumr.net/political-theory-f2/luxemburgism-vs-trotskyism-t114.htm). But there are more topics that you can see (in several languages).
SALUD

[zimmerwald1915]

Because gravedigging a thread when there's a similar newer one going on at the same time is incredibly productive...

[PRC-UTE]

Take a look at the history of Finland post-1917 and you'll see what I mean.

I'm uncertain why Finland is always brought into this, maybe you could explain.

[zimmerwald1915]

Well, to be honest, Poland is just as good an example, or Latvia. The basic point I was inferring (you can't really call a one-line post an argument) was that nationalism gave strength and confidence to the bourgeoisie while dividing and bamboozling the workers' movement.

[Revy]

I should clarify that Communist Democracy also exists in Spain and other countries and that there are Luxemburgist groups in several countries. That comment was misinformed.

[PRC-UTE]

Well, to be honest, Poland is just as good an example, or Latvia. The basic point I was inferring (you can't really call a one-line post an argument) was that nationalism gave strength and confidence to the bourgeoisie while dividing and bamboozling the workers' movement.

I still don't see what that has to do with with Finland. The USSR wasn't in a position to intervene because it was fighting for its own survival, so the Reds there lost the civil war. It doesn't make a lot of sense to then make a principle out of national liberation from that one case, either for or against- there were too many factors in the communist defeat there to pin it to one thing. I don't see how Poland relates, either.

If there were seperatist movements attempting to break off after a successful workers' revolution, I'd oppose them. If they are against capitalist nations, there's a decent chance it could create up a revolutionary situatino as well and so they should be supported. It's all tactical and creating too many principles seems useless to me.

[Devrim]

It is a long text to paste, but it deals with the issue of the states surrounding Russia at the time of the revolution well:

A noose around the neck of the Russian Revolution

The October revolution was the first step in the revolutionary movement of the proletariat on a world scale: "That the Bolsheviks have based their policy entirely upon the world proletarian revolution is the clearest proof of their political farsightedness and firmness of principle and of the bold scope of their politics" (Rosa Luxemburg, 'The Russian Revolution' in Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, Pathfinder Press, page 368)
In accordance with this thinking, where the essential issue was the international extension of the revolution, support for national liberation movements in the countries oppressed by the great metropolitan imperialists was seen as a tactic for winning additional support for the world revolution.
From October 1917, the Bolsheviks pushed for the independence of the countries which the Czarist empire had kept subjugated: the Baltic countries, Finland, Poland, the Ukraine, Armenia etc... They believed that such an attitude would guarantee the revolutionary proletariat indispensable support for its efforts to retain power while waiting for the maturation and explosion of the proletarian revolution in the great European countries, especially Germany. These hope were never to be fulfilled:
· Finland: the Soviet government recognised its independence on the 18th of December 1917. The working class movement in this country was very strong: it was on the revolutionary ascent, it had strong links with the Russian workers and had actively participated in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions. It was not a question of a country dominated by feudalism, but a very developed capitalist territory. And the Finnish bourgeoisie used the Soviet power's gift in order to crush the workers' insurrection that broke out in January 1918. This struggle lasted nearly 3 months but, despite the resolute support the Soviets gave to the Finnish workers, the new state was able to destroy the revolutionary movement, thanks to German troops whom they called on to help them;
· The Ukraine: the local nationalist movement did not represent a real bourgeois movement, but rather obliquely expressed the vague resentments of the peasants against the Russian landlords and above all the Poles. The proletariat in this region came from all over Russia and was very developed. In these conditions the band of nationalist adventurers that set up the 'Ukraine Rada' (Vinnickenko, Petlyura etc.) rapidly sought the patronage of German and Austrian imperialism. At the same time it dedicated all its forces to attacking the workers' soviets, which had been formed in Kharkov and other cities. The French general Tabouis who, because of the collapse of the central powers, replaced the German influence, employed Ukrainian reactionary bands in the war of the White Guards against the Soviets.
"Ukrainian nationalism... was a mere whim, a folly of a few dozen petty bourgeois intellectuals without the slightest roots in the economic, political or psychological relationships of the country; it was without any historical tradition, since the Ukraine never formed a nation or government, was without any national culture... To what was at first a mere farce they lent such importance that the farce became a matter of the most deadly seriousness - not as a serious national movement for which, afterwards as before, there are no roots at all, but as a shingle and rallying flag of counter-revolution. At Brest, out of this addled egg crept the German bayonets" (Rosa Luxemburg, idem, pages 382-2);
· The Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania): the workers' soviets took power in this zone at the same moment as the October revolution. 'National liberation' was carried out by British marines: "With the termination of hostilities against Germany, British naval units appeared in the Baltic. The Estonian Soviet Republic collapsed in January 1919. The Latvian Soviet Republic held out in Riga for five months and then succumbed to the threat of British naval guns" (E.H.Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol. 1, page 317)
· In Asiatic Russia, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan: "A Bashkir government under one Validov, which had proclaimed an autonomous Bashkir state after the October revolution, went over to the Orenburg Cossacks who were in open warfare against the Soviet Government; and this was typical of the prevailing attitude of the nationalists" (idem, page 324). For its part the 'national-revolutionary' government of Kokanda (in central Asia), with a programme that included the imposition of Islamic law, the defence of private property, and the forced seclusion of women, unleashed a fierce war against the workers' Soviet of Tashkent (the principal industrial city of Russian Turkestan).
· In Caucasia a Transcaucasian republic was formed, and its tutelage was fought over between Turkey, Germany and Great Britain. This caused it to break up into 3 'independent' republics (Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan), which fiercely confronted each other, urged on in turn by each of the contesting powers. The three republics supported with all their forces the British troops in their battle against the Baku workers' Soviet, which from 1917-20 suffered bombardment and massacres by the British;
· Turkey: from the beginning the Soviet government supported the 'revolutionary nationalist' Kemal Attaturk. Radek, a member of the CI, exhorted the recently formed Turkish Communist Party thus: "Your first task, as soon as you have formed as an independent party, will be to support the movement for the national freedom of Turkey" (Acts of the first four Congresses of the CI). The result was a catastrophe: Kemal crushed without leniency the strikes and demonstrations of the young Turkish proletariat and, if for a time he allied with the Soviet government, it was only done to put pressure on the British troops who were occupying Constantinople, and on the Greeks who had occupied large parts of Western Turkey. However, once the Greeks had been defeated and having offered British imperialism his fidelity if they left Constantinople, Kemal broke off the alliance with the Soviets and offered the British the head of the Turkish Communist Party, which was viciously persecuted.
· The case of Poland should also be mentioned. The national emancipation of Poland was almost a dogma in the Second International. When Rosa Luxemburg, at the end of the 19th century, demonstrated that this slogan was now erroneous and dangerous since capitalist development had tightly bound the Polish bourgeoisie to the Russian Czarist imperial caste, she provoked a stormy polemic inside the International. But the truth was that the workers of Warsaw, Lodz and elsewhere were at the vanguard of the 1905 revolution and had produced revolutionaries as outstanding as Rosa. Lenin had recognised that "The experience of the 1905 revolution demonstrated that even in these two nations (he is referring to Poland and Finland) the leading classes, the landlords and the bourgeoisie, renounced the revolutionary struggle for liberty and had looked for a rapprochement with the leading classes in Russia and with the Czarist monarchy out of fear of the revolutionary proletariat of Finland and Poland" (minutes of the Prague party conference, 1912).
Unfortunately the Bolsheviks held onto the dogma of 'the right of nations to self-determination', and from October 1917 on they promoted the independence of Poland. On 29 August 1918 the Council of Peoples Commissars declared "All treaties and acts concluded by the government of the former Russian Empire with the government of Prussia or of the Austro-Hungarian Empire concerning Poland, in view of their incompatibility with the principle of the self-determination of nations and with the revolutionary sense of right of the Russian people, which recognises the indefeasible right of the Polish people to independence and unity, are hereby irrevocably rescinded" (quoted in E.H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, vol 1, p 293).
While it was correct that the proletarian bastion should denounce and annul the secret treaties of the bourgeois government, it was a serious error to do so in the name of 'principles' which were not on a proletarian terrain, but a bourgeois one, viz the 'right of nations'. This was rapidly demonstrated in practice. Poland fell under the iron dictatorship of Pilsudski, the veteran social patriot, who smashed the workers' strikes, allied Poland with France and Britain, and actively supported the counter-revolution of the White Armies by invading the Ukraine in 1920.
When in response to this aggression the troops of the Red Army entered Polish territory and advanced on Warsaw in the hope that the workers would rise up against the bourgeoisie, a new catastrophe befell the cause of the world revolution: the workers of Warsaw, the same workers who had made the 1905 revolution, fell in behind the 'Polish Nation' and participated in the defence of the city against the soviet troops. This was the tragic consequence of years of propaganda about the 'national liberation' of Poland by the Second International and then by the proletarian bastion in Russia. [2]
The outcome of this policy was catastrophic: the local proletariats were defeated, the new nations were not 'grateful' for the Bolsheviks' present and quickly passed into the orbit of British imperialism, collaborating in their blockade of the Soviet power and sustaining with all the means at their disposal the White counter-revolution which provoked a bloody civil war.
"The Bolsheviks were to be taught to their own great hurt and that of the revolution, that under the rule of capitalism there is no self-determination of peoples, that in a class society each class of the nation strives to 'determine itself' in a different fashion, and that, for the bourgeois classes, the stand-point of national freedom is fully subordinated to that of class rule. The Finnish bourgeoisie, like the Ukrainian bourgeoisie, were unanimous in preferring the violent rule of Germany to national freedom, if the latter should be bound up with Bolshevism." (Rosa Luxemburg, 'The Russian Revolution', Rosa Luxemburg Speaks, page 380)


Full article:http://en.internationalism.org/ir/066_natlib_01.html

Devrim

[Charles Xavier]

Luxembourgist groups are the weirdest shit ever. Spartacus for example has huge articles on how R Kelly is being oppressed for wanting to have sex with minors. They think there should be no age of consent.

[Leo]

I think you are referring to what is called the "Sparts", who have got nothing to do with Luxemburg or anything called Luxemburgism (nor do they call themselves that). They are Trotskyists, and that of the most Stalinist kind: I think when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, their papers title was "Hail the Red Army!"

[Charles Xavier]

I think you are referring to what is called the "Sparts", who have got nothing to do with Luxemburg or anything called Luxemburgism (nor do they call themselves that). They are Trotskyists, and that of the most Stalinist kind: I think when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, their papers title was "Hail the Red Army!"


They are not luxemburgist they are stalinist trotskyites who support revisionist governments?

[Devrim]

They are not luxemburgist they are stalinist trotskyites who support revisionist governments?

Yes, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Communist_League_(Fourth_Internation alist)

Devrim

[BobKKKindle$]

The Spartacist League of the ICL is not the same as the Spartacists of the 1920s although they both have the same name. The latter group was initially a faction inside by the SPD but later broke away and formed its own separate organization when it became clear that Luxemburg would not be able to gain the mass support of the proletariat as long as she and her supporters remained part of an organization which had consistently betrayed the working class and failed to carry out the social revolution. Luxemburg's failure to break away from the SPD before the major upheavals which occurred during the later stages of WW1 was one of the main reasons why Germany did not undergo a social revolution, as any vanguard party needs to cultivate organic links with the mass working class before it can assume a leading position during a revolutionary period.


They think there should be no age of consent.

This position is not limited to the ICL and it is actually the position that every communist should take. A more important reason to oppose the ICL is that they regularly carry out attacks against members of other communist organizations and are generally disruptive to the communist project.

[gilhyle]

I never came across a luxemburgist organisation, but the following is interesting as an attempt to define the differences (although Im sure some other left communist groups, who would not call themselves Luxemburgists, would agree with the recommended alternatives and many people who think of themselves as agreeing with much of Lenin would not agree with the characterisation of the bolshevik position):


The conception of the revolutionary subject.
The Bolsheviks think that the proletariat is incapable for itself of realizing the revolution. That's why it would need the party, which it must direct to the proletariat
The luxemburgists we think that the proletariat is perfectly capable as class of doing the revolution. The parties are organizations of the class, but they are not essential. And less still they must direct nothing

The question of the democracy in general.
The Bolsheviks think that the dictatorship of the proletariat is exercised in accordance with their conception of the revolutionary subject. That's why that is actually a dictatorship of the vanguard-party.
The luxemburgists we believe that the dictatorship of the proletariat exercises the proletariat as class as a whole, having to exist full freedom for all the tendencies that in the proletariat exist.

The structure interns of the organizations in particular.
The Bolsheviks think that their party must be strictly centralized, hierarchical and disciplined (that's why they formulate the "democratic" centralism), and composed by "professional" revolutionaries.
The luxemburgists we think that the proletarian organizations must be composed by proletarians in general, they must no have hierarchies and we respect the free expression of the ideas (inside and outside of the organization) and the free experimentation (what for the Bolsheviks would be the dissidence).

http://luxemburgism.forumr.net/political-theory-f2/luxemburgism-vs-trotskyism-t114.htm

My own view on Luxemburg is that her writings are often pernicious. I say that despite admiring her personality. But when it comes to reading the Accumulation of Capital or even Reform or Revolution I find a lot of what she writes quite confused. Her revolutionary spirit carries her through but in those who lack that these same ideas can become very dangerous.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Agreed (i.e., her ignorant criticisms of Bolshevism being used by bourgeois apologists). On the other hand, David Harvey's "accumulation by dispossession" stuff is really good (a "weird" fusion of Luxemburg's continued primitive accumulation in the "non-capitalist" colonies and the Kautsky-Hilferding-Lenin stuff on finance capital in a wholly capitalist world).

[chegitz guevara]

Luxemburg is important for her defense of revolutionary politics against the growing reformist threat within international social democracy, but on many questions she ultimately proved wrong.

I see her position on nationalism as the other side of the coin from Lenin. Lenin, as a Great Russian, needed to argue for the right of self-determination of nations. He was a member of the opressor nationality. Luxemburg, as a Pole, on the other hand, was correct in arguing that nationalism was a trap for the little nations and for opposing it from that basis. It's not a stance that any Great Russian could have taken politically.

Ultimately, her worst mistake was not understanding the nature of the German state and letting trying harder to avoid capture and assassination.

Luxemburgism bears about as much adherence to Luxemburg as most Leninists bear to Lenin. Her name has been adopted by those who call themselves communists but oppose Bolshevism, when in fact, she was supportive of the Russian Revolution. There is a reason she didn't publish her attack on the Bolsheviks and left instructions for it not to be published.