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Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg

Luxemburgism (also written Luxembourgism) is a specific revolutionary theory within communism, based on the writings of Rosa Luxemburg. Gavril Ilyich Myasnikov (1889-1945 also transliterated as Gavriil Il'ich Miasnikov, was a Russian metalworker from the Urals, who participated in the Revolution Karl Korsch ( August 15, 1886 - October 21, 1961) was a German Marxist theorist Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst ( May 5, 1882 September 27, 1960) was a notable campaigner for the Suffragette movement in the United Jan Appel ( 1890 - 4 May 1985) was an German Left communist Revolutionary who participated in the German Revolution Marck Chirik (13May 1907 Russia – 1990 also known as Marc Laverne was a communist revolutionary and one of the founding militants of the International Communist Paul Mattick ( 13 March 1904 – 7 February 1981) was a Marxist political writer and activist Grandizo Munis (18 April 1912 - 4February 1989 was a Spanish politician ( August 13, 1871 - January 15, 1919) was a German Socialist and a co-founder of the Spartacist League and the Communist The Communist Workers International ( German: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Internationale, KAI or Fourth International was a Council communist The International Communist Party was a left communist international which was also described as a Bordigist party The International Communist Current is an international centralised left communist organisation which was formed in 1975 and which has sections in France Great Britain The International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party is an international tendency whose member organisations identify with the Italian Left communist tradition Council communism is a Far-left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s Ultra-leftism has two overlapping uses It is used as a generally Pejorative term for certain types of positions on the left that are seen as extreme or intransigent Libertarian Marxism is a school of Marxism that describes itself as taking a less Authoritarian view of Marxist theory than conventional currents such as Stalinism Autonomism refers to a set of Left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. The Situationist International ( SI) was a small group of international political and artistic Agitators with roots in Marxism, Lettrism and the A revolution (from the Latin revolutio, "a turnaround" is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively Communism is a Socioeconomic structure that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless Society based Rosa Luxemburg (Róża Luksemburg 5 March 1870 or 1871 15 January 1919 was a Polish-born Jewish German Marxist theorist, socialist According to M. K. Dziewanowski, the term was originally coined by Bolshevik leaders denouncing the deviations from traditional Leninism of Luxemburg's followers, but it has since been adopted by her followers themselves. The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists ( Большевик Большевист (singular, derived from bolshe, "more" were a faction Leninism refers to various related political and economic theories elaborated by Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin.

Luxemburgism is an interpretation of Marxism which, while supporting the Russian Revolution, as Rosa Luxemburg did, agrees with her criticisms of the politics of Lenin and Trotsky; she did not see their concept of "democratic centralism" as democracy. Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Third Russian Revolution (also know as the Left Wing Rebellions Against the Bolsheviks) was a series of Rebellions and uprisings against the Bolsheviks Leon Trotsky ( Russian:, Lev Davidovich Trotsky, also transliterated Leo, Lyev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij Democratic centralism is the name given to the principles of internal organization used by Leninist political parties and the term is sometimes used as a synonym for any Leninist

Contents

Luxemburgism as democratic revolutionary socialism

The chief tenets of Luxemburgism are commitment to democracy and the necessity of the revolution taking place as soon as possible. Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system In this regard, it is similar to Council Communism, but differs in that, for example, Luxemburgists don't reject trade unions or elections by principle. Council communism is a Far-left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s A trade union or labour union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages hours and working conditions forming An election is a Decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold formal office It resembles anarchism in its insistence that only relying on the people themselves as opposed to their leaders can avoid an authoritarian society, but differs in that it sees the importance of a revolutionary party, and mainly the centrality of the working class in the revolutionary struggle. Anarchism is a Political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which support the elimination of all compulsory Government, i Authoritarianism describes a Form of government characterized by an emphasis on the Authority of the State in a republic or union It resembles Trotskyism in its opposition to the totalitarianism of Stalinist government while simultaneously avoiding the reformist politics of modern Social Democracy, but differs from Trotskyism in arguing that Lenin and Trotsky also made undemocratic errors. Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe Political systems where a State regulates nearly every aspect of public and private Stalinism is the political regime named after Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1929–1953 Social democracy is a Political ideology of the left and centre-left

In "The Russian Revolution", written in a German jail during WWI, Luxemburg critiqued Bolsheviks' absolutist political practice and opportunist policies--i. e. , their suppression of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918, their support for the partition of the old feudal estates to the peasant communes. She derived this critique from Marx's original concept of the "revolution in permanence. " Marx outlines this strategy in his March 1850 "Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League. " As opposed to the Bolsheviks neo-Blanquist interpretation of permanent revolution, Marx argued that the role of the working class revolutionary party was not to create a one-party state, nor to give away land--even in semi-feudal countries like Germany in 1850--or Russia in 1917--where the working class was in the minority. In Left-wing discourse ' Blanquism' refers to a conception of revolution generally attributed to Louis Auguste Blanqui which holds that socialist revolution should This article is about the theory See Permanent Revolution (group for the group of the same name and Permanent Revolution (album for the Catch 22 Rather, Marx argued that the role of the working class was, WITHIN structures of radical democracy, to organize, arm and defend themselves in workers councils and militias, to campaign for their own socialist political program, to expand workers rights, and to seize and farm collectively the feudal estates. Because the Bolsheviks failed to fulfil this Marxian program, Luxemburg argued, the Revolution bureaucratized, the cities starved, the peasant soldiers in the Army were demoralized and deserted in order to get back home for the land grab. Thus the Germans easily invaded and took the Ukraine. They justified this, during the Brest-Litovsk treaty negotiations, in the very same terms of "national self-determination" (for the Ukrainian bourgeoisie) that the Bolsheviks had promoted as an aid to socialist revolution, and that Luxemburg critiqued, years earlier, in her "The National Question," and in this document. Not to be confused with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (February 9 1918, a similar treaty involving Ukraine and the Central Powers.

Luxemburg criticized Lenin's ideas on how to organize a revolutionary party as likely to lead to a loss of internal democracy and the domination of the party by a few leaders. Ironically, in her most famous attack on Lenin's views, the 1904 Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy, or, Leninism or Marxism?[1], a response to Lenin's 1903 What Is To Be Done?, Luxemburg was more worried that the authoritarianism she saw in Leninism would lead to sectarianism and irrelevancy than that it would lead to a dictatorship after a successful revolution - although she also warned of the latter danger. What Is to Be Done? (Что делать? was a political pamphlet written by Vladimir Lenin at the end of 1901 and early 1902 Sectarianism is Bigotry, Discrimination, Prejudice or Hatred arising from attaching importance to perceived differences between subdivisions Luxemburg died before Stalin's assumption of power, and never had a chance to come up with a complete theory of Stalinism, but her criticisms of the Bolsheviks have been taken up by many writers in their arguments about the origins of Stalinism, including many who are otherwise far from Luxemburgism.

Luxemburg's idea of democracy, which Stanley Aronowitz calls "generalized democracy in an unarticulated form", represents Luxemburgism's greatest break with "mainstream communism", since it effectively diminishes the role of the Communist Party, but is in fact very similar to the views of Karl Marx ("The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves"). Stanley Aronowitz (born 1933 is professor of Sociology, cultural studies and Urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center. A Political party described as a communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of Communism through a communist form of According to Aronowitz, the vagueness of Luxembourgian democracy is one reason for its initial difficulty in gaining widespread support. However, since the fall of the Soviet Union, Luxemburgism has been seen by some socialist thinkers as a way to avoid the totalitarianism of Stalinism. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Totalitarianism (or totalitarian rule) is a concept used to describe Political systems where a State regulates nearly every aspect of public and private

Dialectic of Spontaneity and Organisation

The Dialectic of Spontaneity and Organisation was the central feature of Rosa Luxemburg's political philosophy, wherein "spontaneity" is a grass roots, even anarchistic, approach to organising a party-oriented class struggle. For other meanings see Grass roots (disambiguation. A grassroots movement (often referenced in the context of a Political movement Anarchism is a Political philosophy encompassing theories and attitudes which support the elimination of all compulsory Government, i Class struggle is the active expression of Class conflict looked at from any kind of socialist perspective Spontaneity and organisation, she argued, are not separable or separate activities, but different moments of one political process; one does not exist without the other. These beliefs arose from her view that there is an elementary, spontaneous class struggle from which class struggle evolves to a higher level:

"The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles . . . Social democracy . . . is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh. The proletariat (from Latin la ''proles'' "offspring" is a term used to identify a lower Social class; a member of such a class is proletarian Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone. "[2]

Organisation mediates spontaneity; organisation must mediate spontaneity. It would be wrong to accuse Rosa Luxemburg of holding "spontaneism" as an abstraction. Revolutionary spontaneity (also known as spontaneism) is a tendency to believe that Social revolution can and should occur spontaneously from below She developed the Dialectic of Spontaneity and Organisation under the influence of mass strikes in Europe, especially the Russian Revolution of 1905. Unlike the social democratic orthodoxy of the Second International, she did not regard organisation as product of scientific-theoretic insight to historical imperatives, but as product of the working classes' struggles:

"Social democracy is simply the embodiment of the modern proletariat's class struggle, a struggle which is driven by a consciousness of its own historic consequences. The Second International (1889-1916 was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. The masses are in reality their own leaders, dialectically creating their own development process. The more that social democracy develops, grows, and becomes stronger, the more the enlightened masses of workers will take their own destinies, the leadership of their movement, and the determination of its direction into their own hands. And as the entire social democracy movement is only the conscious advance guard of the proletarian class movement, which in the words of the Communist Manifesto represent in every single moment of the struggle the permanent interests of liberation and the partial group interests of the workforce vis à vis the interests of the movement as whole, so within the social democracy its leaders are the more powerful, the more influential, the more clearly and consciously they make themselves merely the mouthpiece of the will and striving of the enlightened masses, merely the agents of the objective laws of the class movement. Manifesto of the Communist Party ( often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was first published on February 21, 1848, and is "[3]

and

"The modern proletarian class does not carry out its struggle according to a plan set out in some book or theory; the modern workers' struggle is a part of history, a part of social progress, and in the middle of history, in the middle of progress, in the middle of the fight, we learn how we must fight. . . That's exactly what is laudable about it, that's exactly why this colossal piece of culture, within the modern workers' movement, is epoch-defining: that the great masses of the working people first forge from their own consciousness, from their own belief, and even from their own understanding the weapons of their own liberation. "[4]

Other Luxemburg criticisms of Lenin and Trotsky

Rosa Luxemburg also criticized Lenin's views on the right of the oppressed nations of the former Czarist Empire to self-determination. Tsar csar and tzar redirect here For other uses see Tsar (disambiguation. She saw this as a ready-made formula for imperialist intervention in those countries on behalf of bourgeois forces hostile to socialism. Proponents of Lenin's position on the nationalities argue that it was in fact what brought many members of the different nationalities of the former Czarist Empire together in supporting the Bolshevik-led revolution.

Luxemburgism as opposition to imperialist war and capitalism

While being critical of the politics of the Bolsheviks, Rosa Luxemburg saw the behaviour of the Social Democratic Second International as a complete betrayal of socialism. Social democracy is a Political ideology of the left and centre-left The Second International (1889-1916 was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. As she saw it, at the outset of the First World War the Social Democratic Parties around the world betrayed the world's working class by supporting their own individual bourgeoisies in the war. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All This included her own Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the majority of whose delegates in the Reichstag voted for war credits. The Reichstag ( German for "Imperial Diet " was the Parliament of the Holy Roman Empire, the North German Confederation,

Rosa Luxemburg opposed the sending of the working class youth of each country to what she viewed as slaughter in a war over which of the national bourgeoisies would control world resources and markets. She broke from the Second International, viewing it as nothing more than an opportunist party that was doing administrative work for the capitalists. Rosa Luxemburg, with Karl Liebknecht, organized a strong movement in Germany with these views, but was imprisoned and, after her release, killed for her work during the failed German Revolution of 1919 - a revolution which the German Social Democratic Party violently opposed. ( August 13, 1871 - January 15, 1919) was a German Socialist and a co-founder of the Spartacist League and the Communist

Present-day Luxemburgism

While there are presently very few active Luxemburgist revolutionary movements; there is widespread interest in her ideas particularly among feminists and Trotskyists as well as among leftists in Germany. Feminism is a discourse that involves various movements theories, and Philosophies which are concerned with the issue of Gender difference, advocate In 2002 ten thousand people marched in Berlin for Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and another 90,000 people laid carnations on their graves. Berlin is the capital city and one of sixteen states of Germany. [5]

To many socialists, whether they see themselves as Luxemburgist or not, Rosa Luxemburg was a martyr for revolutionary socialism. For Luxemburgists, her stalwart dedication to democracy and vigorous repudiation of capitalism exemplifies the socialist concept of democracy that is viewed as the essential element of socialism rather than a contradiction of it. Many socialist currents today, particularly Trotskyists, consider Rosa Luxemburg to have been an important influence on their theory and politics. Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. However, while respecting Luxemburg, these organizations do not consider themselves "Luxemburgist. "


Notable Luxemburgists

See also

References

  1. ^ Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy
  2. ^ In a Revolutionary Hour: What Next?, Collected Works 1. Socialist Resistance is an Ecosocialist network in Britain which publishes a Marxist Periodical of the same name Solidarity is a Socialist group in the United States that describes itself as "a democratic revolutionary socialist feminist anti-racist organization" 2, p. 554
  3. ^ The Political Leader of the German Working Classes, Collected Works 2, p. 280
  4. ^ The Politics of Mass Strikes and Unions, Collected Works 2, p. 465
  5. ^ Workers World Jan. 31, 2002: Berlin events honor left-wing leaders

External links

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