Rosa Luxemburg: An Unorthodox defender of Marxist Orthodoxy
Born in the March of 1871 in the Polish town of Zamosc Rosa Luxemburg was a Jewish-born Pole in Russian Occupied Poland. Her father and mother introduced her at a young age to liberal and leftist topics and encouraged her to read (citation). Luxemburg was involved in leftist politics early on something that would continue for her entire life. Luxemburg became incredibly influential to the democratic socialist movement and the social democratic movement as well as the ideas of Scientific Socialism and combatting leftist revisionism. Publishing two major works in her life and a series of speeches that have been translated into many languages, one of the main concerns for Luxemburg was the growth of Social Democratic reformism she saw in her life. She spent much of her time and energy combatting this especially after the publication of Revolution or Reform. Despite Luxemburg’s death and the apparent victory of reformism Luxemburg still has many lessons to be taught for the modern socialist movement.
Rosa was an exceptional youth and despite her limp, her Jewish heritage, and her Polish upbringing she was accepted into Secondary School. From a young age, Luxemburg was involved in leftist politics. She joined the Polish Leftist party named Proletariat twenty years before the Russian communist parties. Some of Luxemburg’s first taste of action and organizing was planning a General Strike which eventually led to the execution of 4 party leaders and the disbandment of the party as a whole. Luxemburg fled Poland to Switzerland. There she attended Zurich University studying Political Science, Economics, and a wide range of social sciences. She received a doctorate, something uncommon at the time for women. Eventually, Luxemburg arrived in Germany and quickly became enthralled in the German socialist movement and in International Marxism.
In 1899 Eduard Bernstein published the controversial but pivotal text Die Voraussetzungen des Sozialismus und die Aufgaben der Sozialdemokratie also known as Evolutionary Socialism. This text began a large amount of debate especially within the Social Democratic Party (SPD) In Germany. Chief among its critics was Rosa Luxemburg who argued that the text constituted a form of failed revisionism and despites its arguments against scientific socialism it failed to hold up. Evolutionary Socialism mainly argued that socialism would not come because of some sort of catastrophic event or proletariat uprising but because of increased desire for socialism among the workers, and the eventual transformation of capitalism into a socialist democracy. Luxemburg published a widely read refutation of Evolutionary Socialism in the same year titled Revolution or Reform. Within this text, she argued three main ideas, first that scientific socialism was true despite the claims of Bernstein, that labour unions and political parties although necessary could not in and of themselves create socialism, and that reformism represented a form of petty bourgeoisie way of thinking. Only revolution, Luxemburg claimed could bring about Socialism (Luxemburg, 46). This text as long as Luxemburgs other speeches and texts would divide the SPD and eventually lead to her death.
As the First World War came to an end revolutions ignited in Germany, among the revolutions was the January Revolution starting January 8th, 1919 led by the Spartacus League and the Communist Party of Germany (Led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht). The revolution seized some newspapers and called for the installation of a socialist regime in Germany and encouraged others to rise up. On January 15th Luxemburg and Liebknecht were captured on the orders of Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the SPD. Liebknecht was executed and Rosa was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a gun and shot in the back of the head before she was thrown in a canal.
Reform or Revolution for Luxemburg was not even a question. Reformism simply would not work. She believed that reformism was a sort of socialist defeatism, that reformism was not a way of achieving socialism but a totally different goal altogether. As she put it “[Reformism] renounces the struggle against the capitalist mode of production and attempts to direct the socialist movement to struggle against ‘capitalist distribution’” (Luxemburg 70). This struggle against capitalist distribution according to Bernstein is to be brought about by union and parliamentary activity. As Rosa says “…According to Bernstein, trade unions and parliamentary activity gradually reduce capitalist exploitation itself. They remove from capitalist society its capitalist.” (Luxemburg 47), while to her “…union and parliamentary activity are important for the socialist movement because such activity prepares the proletariat, that is to say, creates the subjective factor of the socialist transformation, for the task of realizing socialism.” (Luxemburg 47). Luxemburg argues against the idea of unions as an end but rather as a means to an end, the end, of course, being socialism, but the unions themselves do not serve to bring about socialism they instead organize and develop a class consciousness in the proletariat.
For socialists nowadays it is hard to imagine a world where social democracy was once the greatest hope for socialism. Social Democratic parties have been in power throughout much of the world and in some countries have emerged as the dominant force but for many, it has not been enough, Bernstein seems to have been wrong that prolonged social democracy would lead to socialism. In Sweden, the Left Party and the Social Democrats are no longer the allies they once were, with the Left Party ending up being a defining vote in passing a no-confidence vote on the Social Democrat Party (Mealy, 2021). In Europe where social democracy had been a dominant political force, it has begun to decline and far-right populist parties have surged to take its place as seen in Sweden and Germany. But a grand revolution as Luxemburg called for seems further away than ever. Luxemburg had a lot to say, and if she was alive now she would likely have a resounding “I told you so”, but her predictions on a socialist popular movement also seem unlikely.
The left can learn a lot from Luxemburg, foremost though is about sticking to the values that socialists are supposed to hold dear, empathy, passion, and care for the global working class. Rosa Luxemburg was an unorthodox defender of Marxist orthodoxy, from her upbringing to being a Jewish polish woman in Germany, but she always knew what she stood for. An end to the oppression of the working class, an end to capitalism, and an end to the pointless deaths of young people in war. Socialists and Social Democrats would be wise to read her words and understand what she is saying. Political and union action is vital to the betterment of workers conditions and to the organizing and development of the working class but that should not be the end goal, the end goal should be the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with socialism, an end to inequality and injustice in labour, and a better fairer world.
Citations
Luxemburg, R. (2021). Reform or revolution. Pathfinder.
Mealy, D. (2021, June 23). Sweden’s Social Democrats Got No-Confidenced Because They Tried to Remove Rent Controls. Jacobin. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/06/sweden-stefan-lofven-no-confidence-housing.
