Luxemburg vs. Kautsky on revolutionary periods

I've been resisting the urge to post this particular subject, if only because I didn't have enough sources to back up my central argument, but just recently Paul Cockshott gave the perfect argument for today's circumstances.



The assertion by left-communists on this board is that the mass strike, as described by Rosa Luxemburg, signals the beginning of the revolutionary period (see this thread). In actual fact, however, it's the other way around, and even then one may not necessarily transpire: the revolutionary period may usher in mass strikes.

Just when do these revolutionary periods come about, anyway? In 1909 the Marxist theoretician Karl Kautsky gave the definitive answer for his time, observing the new era of wars and revolutions in The Road to Power:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kaut...ower/index.htm

To in the age of railroads and telegraphs, of newspapers and public assemblages, of countless industrial centers, of magazine rifles and machine guns it is absolutely impossible for a minority to cripple the military: forces of the capital, unless they are already completely disorganized. It is also impossible to confine a political struggle to the capital. Political life has become national.

Where these conditions exist a great transfer of political power that shall destroy a tyrannical regime is only to be expected where all of the following conditions exist:

1) The great mass of the people must be decisively hostile to such a regime.
2) There mast be a great organized party in irreconcilable opposition to such a regime.
3) This party must represent the interests of the great majority of the population and possess their confidence.
4) Confidence in the ruling regime, both in its power and in its stability, mast have been destroyed by its own tools, by the bureaucracy and the army.

That fourth point is critical, since he and not his disciple Lenin conceptualized revolutionary defeatism in all but the terminology (not to mention conceptualized the Marxist theory of imperialism that has been misattributed to the latter)!

On the third point, Kautsky had these brief words to say about the mass strike strategy:

In this time of universal uncertainty the immediate task of the proletariat is clear. We have already developed it. It cannot progress further without changes in the national foundation upon which it is waging its fight. To strive for democracy, not only in the empire, but also in the individual states and especially in Prussia – that is its next task in Germany; its next international task is to wage war on world politics and militarism.

Just as clear as these tasks are the means which are at our disposal for their solution. In addition to those that have already been utilized we have now added the mass strike, which we had already theoretically accepted at the beginning of the 90s, and whose application under favorable conditions has been repeatedly tested since then. If it has been somewhat pushed into the background since the glorious days of 1905, this only shows that it is not workable in every situation, and that it would be foolish to attempt to apply it under all conditions.

On the first point, Kautsky dedicated the very last chapter of his last full-bodied work as a Marxist (according to the disciple Lenin) to a rather external factor leading to such hostility: inter-imperialist war!

At the same time the national antagonisms grow sharper, which stirs up the danger of war. Each government finds the constant and ever revolutionized war preparations more unbearable, but none of the ruling classes seeks the fault in the world politics that they follow. They dare not see it there, for this is the last refuge of capitalism. So each one finds the fault with the other, the German with England and the English with Germany. All become more and more nervous and suspicious, which in turn creates a new spur, to add new haste to the warlike preparations, until they are at last ready to cry. “Better a terrible end than an endless terror.”

Long ago this situation would have led to war, as the only alternative except revolution by which to escape from this crazy situation of reciprocal screwing up of the national burdens, had it not been for the fact that this alternative would have brought the revolution that stands behind the war – nearer than even behind an armed peace. It is the rising power of the proletariat which for three decades has prevented every European war, and which today causes every government to shudder at the prospect of war. But forces are driving us on to a condition where at last the weapons will be automatically released.

Now, in regards to Paul Cockshott, he made some profoundly true and important remarks in a recent paper rebutting a market-socialist in the United States (I don't have the link, alas). In this paper, he states the circumstances leading to a modern revolutionary period:

Given the position of the USA in the world economic and political system, and given the absence of any signifcant social-democratic workers movement there, discussion of American Socialism has a slightly articial air. However, it is not inconcievable that during the course of the 21st century this will change. The USA has moved from being the world's greatest creditor to its greatest debtor. In China it is faced for the frst time with an industrial rival with the population resources to potentially overtake it. At the time of writing (March 2009) it is entering what looks like being its worst recession in three generations. All of these factors could lead to a serious socialist or social-democratic movement taking root in the USA over the next quarter century. But would the ideology put forward by Yunker's be a plausible basis for such a movement?

We believe not.

Yunker's proposals are to timid to inspire a new generation of working class organisers. Although his ideas would, if somehow put into practice, mean some improvement in the income of workers, they would leave most of the structure of society unchanged. The very top stratum of capitalists would be removed, but the rest of the class structure would remain. The managerial and professional classes would retain their position vis a vis the working class. Workers would be employed by the same companies, managed in the same way but with the sole difference that the state would be the ultimate shareholder. Bcause his proposals do nothing to narrow income differentials arising from wages and salaries, because they provide no guarantee of full employment, they would be seen as having little to oer to the working class. They might perhaps win a certain middle class following, but in the ideological struggles that would take place within a growing working class socialist movement, they would be displaced by more radical doctrines.

One has to realise that for socialism to become 'on the agenda' in the USA will presuppose

(1) A political movement at least comparable to classical German or Swedish social democracy, or the large communist movements of the post WWII period,

(2) A major war resulting either
(a) in a defeat, comparable to those suered by France in 1870, Russia 1917 or Germany 1918/45
(b) a pyrrhic victory that could only be won after years of national sacrifce, in which the social democratic movement advanced its position like Britain in 1945.

On the first point, this means:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/debating-k...122/index.html

But this means the construction of a mass party has to take place under conditions in which the question of power is not immediately posed. Moreover, it means that organising work and propaganda work, whose payoff is not immediate, is as important as immediate agitation round strikes and other forms of the immediate class struggle. Further, the party has to carry on propaganda and agitation on political questions – on questions of the constitution and the structure of political power. This de-legitimises the existing state order, legitimises the mass class struggle and worker solidarity, and prepares the political ground for workers to aim for power when crisis breaks out.

This fact is why the centre built mass parties one of which – the Bolsheviks – could reach for power, while the Second International left did not. The lefts thought that the mass struggle would solve the problem of the bureaucracy: Luxemburg is explicit on the point and so is Trotsky, while the real all-the-way mass strike advocates like Sorel or Bogdanov’s Vpered-ists argued against any political action under capitalism as corrupting.

The result is unorganised ideological polemic against the right, like the left in the SPD; or sects, like the SDKPiL of Luxemburg, Jogiches and Dzerzhinsky, or the DeLeonists; or ephemeral unorganised mass-action lefts, like the Italian Maximalists. These three forms have been repeated – too often! – by the post-1945 far left.

The ideas of the pre-1914 centre, including Kautsky, are therefore the necessary starting point. Put another way, Bolshevism, not Vpered-ism, is the necessary starting point. It is necessary to criticise the ideas of the centre, and I do so: they were radically wrong on the state, on nation versus internationalism, and – except for the Bolsheviks – wrong on “unity of the workers’ movement”, i.e. unity with the right under any conditions, and for these reasons the majority of their leaders became scabs.

But the ideas of the Second International left and the fetishism of “struggle” as opposed to political action are no alternative. The far left has been trying them repeatedly and uselessly for the last 50-odd years.

Comrade Esterson insists we should keep banging our heads against this wall. To do is to commit yourself in advance to the defeat of the working class when revolutionary crisis does break out.

Since I answered your other thread more specificly I'll go more-or-less off topic in this thread.

Here's an interesting quotation form Hetmann ("Rosa Luxemburg):

In the Spring of 1909 Kautsky's book Der Weg zur Macht appears. His hypothesis? The first task of the poletariat is to forcefully gain democracy from the bourgeoisie and to engage a battle gainst militarism and imperialism.
The party's leadership is offended by some 'revolutionary formulations'. Kautsky gives in and changes some questioned passages.
Rosa tries to make two things clear through the party's organs (newspapers): Isn't it time for a general strike now that the workers are demonstrating against low wages and an unjustified voting system?
And further: Isn't it time to to struggle for the abolishion of the monarchy in favor of the republic?
Most bureaucrats in the SPD and workers' movement find these formulations far too radical.
In March the general committee of the trade unions votes against the strikes. Rosa polemicizes against this weak reaction. The Vorwaerts refuses to publish her article.
Also Kautsky refuses to publish her article in his theoretical magazine Die Neue Zeit.
Although in 1909 he had the idea that a time of struggle for state power was comming, he argues for a more defensive policy of which he hopes it will bring another electoral victory for the SPD in the next two years.
Rosa is furious about the idea that everything needs to be done through parliament.
It became clear that the party was falling apart in 3 blocks. The revisionists [...], the Marxist center [... and] the revolutionary, radical wing.
In 1910, Kautsky [...] proposes [...] to remove a passage mentioning the [democratic] republic [in Luxemburg's article] 'seen that in our program the word republic is never mentioned'. Finally he rejects the whole article. Rosa makes a break with the most important SPD ideologe: 'I'll get that coward, who only has the nerve to attack others in the back!', she wrote furiously.

Very interesting. While I'm generally always pleased mass strikes, they don't necessarily usher in a better day. I'm not sure how much sense a Kautskian/Leninist party makes anymore.


I think I'm misreading the bit from Kautsky: "But forces are driving us on to a condition where at last the weapons will be automatically released." ?? Imperialist war will happen and we can't stop it?? Is it something to welcome in some dialectical manner??? Or just a description??

Yes, imperialist war was inevitable, and it couldn't be stopped. However, worker-class movements everywhere had to prepare to seize power (undermine soldier patriotism, for example). The way Kautsky worded it was just an artistic description.

Right, but Lenin's point and Luxemburg's point was that the WORKER'S MOVEMENTS UPSURGE WAS A MAJOR REASON FOR WORLD WAR I.

This might sound odd but the pressure it put on the capitalists fueled and greatly accelerated inter-imperialist conflict. So for them, it was really "socialism or barbarism" something had to give.


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One has to realise that for socialism to become 'on the agenda' in the USA will presuppose

(1) A political movement at least comparable to classical German or Swedish social democracy, or the large communist movements of the post WWII period,

(2) A major war resulting either
(a) in a defeat, comparable to those suered by France in 1870, Russia 1917 or Germany 1918/45
(b) a pyrrhic victory that could only be won after years of national sacrifce, in which the social democratic movement advanced its position like Britain in 1945.

I agree with 1) but the problem with 2) is that in the current world condition without the organization alluded to in 1) than the situation in 2) would more than likely favor the emerge of a far-right.

That's why Cockshott said both, right?

After reading Lars T Lih I finally understand what you mean by revolutionary periods.

I suppose Kautsky's words alone weren't sufficiently self-explanatory (I read Lih's "database" less than a year ago before reading Kautsky, Macnair and then Cockshott - and I did forward the "database" to you ).