Us and Luxembourg

First of all her name was Rosa Luxemburg.

In my opinion she was one of the greatest revolutionary leaders ever to have lived. Sure she made mistakes and I would disagree with her position on a number of issues, but that's no reason to ignore her contributions to the science of Marxism.

Concerning your first point; it's not entirely accurate to say she completely rejected the Russian revolution (what Marxist worth his or her salt would reject any workers revolt?) or indeed ALL aspects of Bolshevism. Personally I put it down to her failure to fully appreciate the conditions that existed in Russia at the time and the restrictions they imposed upon the Party and the revolution in general.

CHE, she did not reject Bolshevism. She rejected dogmatism, which in the case of the German Revolution meant the dogmatic application of the Bolshevik model to German reality. Lenin and Luxemburg had many things in common while they also had their differences. Bolshevism is a Russian variety of marxism, or revolutionary social-democracy. This means that, although it is part of the marxist tradition (from which we can learn from so many things) it is not generally applicable to every situation. If there's one important thing we should learn from Lenin's pamflet on Left-communism (1920) then it is the fact that Bolshevism, although thought to be superior to left-communist sectarianism, cannot simply be copied.

Of course we should allow Luxemburgists to the Trotskyist group. But they can only post here as "Trotskyists".

Of course we should allow Luxemburgists to the Trotskyist group. But they can only post here as "Trotskyists".

The group should be open to anyone wanting to have serious debate on genuine Marxist ideas and methods. On that note, I see no vital differences between "Trotskyism" and "Luxemburgism" and would encourage "Luxemburgists" to post here. The group is gathering a lot of dust on any record.

Well most luxemburgists describe themselves as left-communists and personally I don't want to have a lot of association with them.
In general the so called left-communists like to copy the mistakes of Rosa Luxemburg and ignore her qualities. That is the case with so-called Luxebrurgists.

Agreed. Let's then discuss on the political mistakes. I see no problems to discuss such things inhere. Then again, this thread is a bit on an abstract level as there are no "Luxemburgists" signed up in the Trotskyist group as far as I know of at least.

This was Rosa's greatest mistake. Her inability to see the centrist currents in the SPD forming, which consequenty was the cause of the failure to make the KPD the leading party of the proletariat in Germany, given the fact that the leadership of the SPD was full of treacherous reformists.

She was one of the few marxists who actually analysed the formation of a centrist current. She did so very early (1910 I think, which saw the birth of that specific current). Seriously; she opposed the Kautsky-Bebel center because it tended to act in the interests of the revisionists. However, her biggest problem (not necessarily a mistake of her own) was her inability to create a strong revolutionary current or fraction withing the SPD. As I wrote: not only because of her mistakes, that would be a serious exaggeration in my opinion, but also because of concrete cirumstances (her position within the party, her attitude, the question of gender ("male chauvenism" within the party), her occupation with Poland and Russia, being constantly on the move, the succes of the center and right wing, etc.).

Another one is the lack of understanding of the importance of cadre-building. That was another weak point in Rosa' analysis. Of course she understood that too late, once she and the revolution were over...

She knew of the importance of cadre-building. Her role within the KPD was one of cadre building, mostly through the paper, but her proposals concerned with party building and tactics were sometimes only supported by a minority within the party. The majority of the party was influenced by the hundreds of workers who were untrained. She didn't start the Spartacist insurrection. The masses did, and she supported the masses even if this meant the advent of death.

As for other theoretical disagreements and criticisms, I think that this "war" between Lenin and Luxemburg was more due to the lack of understanding of the conditions in the two countries rather than anything else. Especially on Rosa's case .

If you're talking about the whole history of polemics between Luxemburg and Lenin you must include tsarist censorship which made it difficult to read each other's works. There's also the context of the SPD's conservatism and the fact that she supported the unity of Mensheviks and Bolsheviks, which meant that she, a brilliant revolutionary, became a serious threat (together with Trotsky, Kautsky and Bebel) for Lenin's concept of party building. That's why Lenin furiously polemicized against Trotsky, Luxemburg and sometimes Kautsky and Bebel before the war.

[FONT=Times New Roman]When she writes “social democratic organizational form cannot be based on blind obedience and on the mechanical subordination of the party militants to some centralized power,” she is protesting a tendency in her own organization rather than anything in Lenin’s account. [/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]Indeed many of her formulations are very close to Lenin’s.[/FONT]