Luxemburgism
Luxemburgism (also written
Luxembourgism) is a specific
revolutionary theory within
communism, based on the writings of
Rosa Luxemburg. 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.
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.
The chief tenets of Luxemburgism are commitment to
democracy and the necessity of the revolution taking place as soon as possible. In this regard, it is similar to
Council Communism, but differs in that, for example, Luxemburgists don't reject
unions or
elections by principle. 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. 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.
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?, 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. 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"). 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.
Rosa Luxemburg also criticized Lenin's views on the right of the oppressed nations of the former
Czarist Empire to self-determination. 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.
While being critical of the politics of the bolsheviks, Rosa Luxemburg saw the behavior of the
Social Democratic Second International as a complete betrayal of socialism. As she saw it, at the outset of the
First World War Social Democratic Parties around the world betrayed the world's working class by supporting their own individual bourgeoisies in the war. This included her own
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) of Germany, the majority of whose delegates in the
Reichstag voted for war credits.
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.
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. In 2002 ten thousand people marched in
Berlin for Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and another 90,000 people laid carnations on their graves.[
1]
To many socialists, whether they see themselves as Luxemburgists or not, Rosa Luxemburg is a hero who stood up to the barbarism of capitalism and imperialist war as well as the many opportunists who falsely claimed to be socialists. And for Luxemburgists, these stands against capitalism and for socialist democracy unify two important ideas that are viewed as complementary rather than contradictory.
*
Rosa Luxemburg*
Karl Liebknecht*
Paul Frolich*
René Lefeuvre*
Daniel Singer*
Alain Guillerm*
Spartacist League (Spartakusbund)
*
Socialist Party USA - contains a strong Luxemburgist current. Luxemburgism/Councilism is mentioned in its
handbook.*
Liberation News (Internationalist)Note: many socialist organisations today, particularly
Trotskyist ones, consider Rosa Luxemburg an important influence on their theory and politics, though those organisations are not "Luxemburgist."
*Aronowitz, Stanley. "Postmodernism and Politics."
Social Text, No. 21: Universal Abandon? The Politics of Postmodernism (1989), pp. 46-62.
*Dziewanowski, M. K. "Social Democrats Versus "Social Patriots": The Origins of the Split of the Marxist Movement in Poland."
American Slavic and East European Review, Vol. 10, No. 1. (Feb., 1951), pp. 14-25.
*
*
Rosa Luxemburg Internet Archive*
Feminist account of Luxemburg's importance by Beverly G. Merrick*
Libertarian Communist Library Archive*
Democratie Communiste (french luxemburgist group) (in french)
*
Workers Democracy Network (possibly an American Luxemburgist organization.)
