Reforma ou Revolução?

by Rosa Luxemburg

O Partido Social-democrata alemão, fundado em 1875 – cuja base consistia em um sólido e amplo movimento sindical operário, e que tinha na teoria social de K. Marx e F. Engels sua inspiração –, representava o que havia de mais avançado na organização dos trabalhadores tanto em termos teóricos quanto organizativos. Entre seus dirigentes figuravam Karl Kautsky, August Bebel e Eduard Bernstein, que mantinham estreita relação com Marx e Engels. É nessas fileiras que Rosa Luxemburgo travará sua militância política e teórica.

Na última década do século XIX, Eduard Bernstein – expressando a posição política de parte da direção da social-democracia – acabara de publicar uma série de artigos refutando explicitamente as premissas básicas do marxismo. Defendia que a revolução era desnecessária, pois se poderia chegar ao socialismo através de reformas graduais do capitalismo, com a multiplicação de cooperativas de produção e consumo, o aumento do poder sindical e a ampliação da democracia parlamentar. A social-democracia, dizia Bernstein, devia deixar de ser o partido da revolução social, tornando-se o partido da reforma social. Isso era a expressão teórica de um movimento de integração do partido à ordem capitalista.

Coube à Rosa Luxemburgo enfrentar o debate em uma série de artigos que resultaram no livro Reforma ou revolução, cuja primeira edição é de 1900. Neles, a revolucionária demonstra – retomando os elementos centrais da crítica da Economia Política – a necessidade da ruptura revolucionária para se instaurar o socialismo. Apesar do impacto deste livro, a social-democracia alemã adere às posições de Bernstein abandonando a perspectiva de transformação radical das estruturas sociais.

Em desacordo com essas posições e recuperando o legado revolucionário de Marx e Engels, Rosa Luxemburgo juntamente com outros militantes, entre os quais Karl Liebknecht, buscam construir uma nova organização dos trabalhadores que tenha como objetivo a revolução social.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Theory, History, Economics, Classics

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1900

About the author

Rosa Luxemburg (Rosalia Luxemburg, Polish: Róża Luksemburg) was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen. She was successively a member of the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the Social Democratic Party of Germany(SPD), the Independent Social Democratic Party and the Communist Party of Germany.

In 1915, after the SPD supported German involvement in World War I, she co-founded, with Karl Liebknecht, the anti-war Spartakusbund (Spartacist League). On 1 January 1919 the Spartacist League became the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). In November 1918, during the German Revolution she founded the Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag), the central organ of the Spartacist movement.

She regarded the Spartacist uprising of January 1919 in Berlin as a blunder, but supported it after Liebknecht ordered it without her knowledge. When the revolt was crushed by the social democrat government and the Freikorps (WWI veterans defending the Weimar Republic), Luxemburg, Liebknecht and some of their supporters were captured and murdered. Luxemburg was drowned in the Landwehr Canal in Berlin. After their deaths, Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht became martyrs for Marxists. According to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, commemoration of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht continues to play an important role among the German far-left.

Reviews

[Asa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rosa was amazingly prescient. .She predicted that imperialists would continue to impose their style of democracy in the 3rd world where the rich are the only ones who get freedom. That they would continue to destroy whoever gets in their way: ie. military /CIA coups. That even in the 1st world, capitalism would capitalize on anything to pick apart our rights. Homeland security, the war on drugs, whatever excuse they can come up with. Liberals (blair, obama are no different and will we ever learn?) are often equally as guilty.
Her comments on imperial war, mass murder , expansion of capitalism , how war is essential to capitalist development make us realize how relevant her views were to today, as we watch wars with Iraq, Afghanistan, (Iran?)…

Rosa also writes of the use of credit to expand the working class’s purchasing power. She heavily criticizes this idea, of credit as an “adaptation” of capitalism, as a boon to the working class. Today, as we suffer through this grand world crisis, we can see how credit has abused the working class. Banks gave credit to those who had no business getting credit, knowing full well that they wouldn't be able to pay.

Essential reading. Even better read with The Mass Strike (get the Essential Rosa Luxemburg published by Haymarket Books).

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 3 out of 5]

Deciphering a classic...

The Missing:
--My main complaint has nothing to do with Luxemburg and her arguments; she wrote this as a critique of Bernstein, whereas my purpose for reading this is to learn about “Reform or Revolution”. This book pamphlet is too specific to serve as an introduction, and too condensed to be a go-to resource (such few words for such big ideas!).
--These are accessible introductions to build introductory context:
1) What is Marxism/scientific socialism? Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
2) Marxist economics 101? Wage Labour and Capital
3) Modern interpretation of capitalism and its contradictions?
-applying theory to reality: Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: or, How Capitalism Works—and How It Fails
-real-world conditions: The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions
4) Reformist economics? Other schools of economics? Modern economy? Economics: The User's Guide
--It is sad to read this passionate defense of Marxism, knowing in hindsight the fate of her and the proletariat movements in developed capitalist countries.

The Good:
--In terms of building a mass movement for class struggle, it should be obvious that engaging centrists/reformists is essential. Much of this group is composed of casual political spectators (as opposed to actors) who start as centrists by default, since we are all compelled to acclimate to the supposed social norms.
--So, it is a treat to read the legendary Rosa Luxemburg methodically dismantle reformist Eduard Bernstein over 100 years ago. Highlights:

1) Will State reforms evolve into socialism? Luxemburg notes that, in 1899, capitalism has reached a stage of conflicts, evidenced by nationalist tariffs and militarism. (This sets the stage for Lenin's Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism).

2) The resilience of capitalism? Reformism often stems from the perception of the resilience/adaptions of capitalism, thus rejecting the crises/collapse of capitalism that Luxemburg cites as a pillar of Marxism. I do not find it a comfort that capitalism survived its 20th century’s imperialist WWI, reactionary WWII, and imperialist Cold War; resilience at the cost of humanity?

3) So, what’s the big deal with this Marx? Luxemburg touches on key distinctions from other prior forms of socialism that were predicated on moral notions of justice, struggle on mode of distribution (rather than production), and class antagonism as rich versus poor (as opposed to relationship of capitalists versus workers). For dive into Marx's political economy: Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1

4) Credit system innovations solving capitalist crises? Ha! This was easy pickings for Luxemburg. Every time and age there is a plethora of shills; in our age, we have Alan Greenspan. For more:
-And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future
-dive: The Bubble and Beyond

--Luxemburg only offered a few lines on these:

5) Can’t we just have “democracy”? The varied history of democracy; how suffrage was used to unify nationalism.

6) Can’t we just have more cooperatives? Cooperatives in a capitalist system are still subject to the same ruthless market competition (even worse, as the capitalist system discourages cooperatives). Those that secure their own market (“consumer cooperatives”) are mostly restricted to immediate consumer needs (i.e. food) and mostly smaller scale. This is the difficulty with relying on micro solutions (Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism), as they need to be synthesized with macro solutions (Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present)

[حسن · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very touched by the story of Rosa's tragic death when I read about it the first time. Almost 10 years later, on the first day of my visit to Berlin in 2005, i asked Denis, my dear german friend, to guide me to where Rosa and Leibnekht were assassinated by the proto-Nazi Freikorps and thrown into Berlin’s Landwehr Canal(*) , even before I head on to the museum to admire Nefertiti's bust (because my dear dad wears it as a gold chain around his neck, my mom's gift to him 42 years ago, so I affectionally associate the artifact to him), or to start my planned long daily walks (for long hours during 4 consecutive days) to discover and to photograph the areas around the falling separation wall (obviously, I'm passionate about Egyptology and the history of the WWII).


Rosa was a brilliant marxist theorist. Reform or Revolution was written when she was 27 years old, only a year later after her graduation from the University of Zurich.
Written in the defense of the scientific Socialism against what she has considered a revisionist doctrine of Marxism, her aim was to demonstrate the fallacy of Reformism preached by Bernstein and to expose its irreconcilability with Marxism.

Intrepid, smart and passionate, Rosa took the initiative to publicly confront the leaders of the SPD and to debunk their theoretical justifications for Reformism. She courageously stood up against the intellectuals and the leaders of the Party, whom Engels contemptuously branded as the “armchair socialists", whereas most of her comrades chickened out or discretely rebuked Bernestein's opportunistic doctrine (Later, even Kautsky will reveal his opportunism and support Bernstein).
On the following congresses of the Party, Rosa (along with Karl Leibnekht) will lead what will become a minority current within the Party that hitherto proclaimed its adherence to the orthodox Marxism, in opposition to the majority wing that approved the doctrine of Reformism. The latter one has attracted the larger number of new adherences to the Party.
On a side note, whether you are a leftist activist in India, Lebanon, Norway or elsewhere, I am sure that you have took part to this theoretical and political debate.. (**)


In her pamphlet, Rosa will strongly defend the same 'revolutionary theory' advocated by Lenin in his famous pamphlet What is to be done? :

“Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. This idea cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity.”

Throughout her analysis, Rosa will debunk, point by point, the political and the economic assumptions made by Bernstein in his articles, collected under the title "The Preconditions of Socialism and the Tasks of Social Democracy".
Bernstein argued that the Party must adopt gradual parliamentary reforms for a progressive transition to Socialism, which for Luxemburg is "an attempt to group these currents into a general theoretic expression, an attempt to elaborate its own theoretical conditions and the break with scientific socialism."

Even though she was a foe of reformist socialism advocated by the leadership of the SPD who participated in the parliamentary process, Luxembourg opposed demands for the Spartacists (***) to emulate the Bolcheviks and seize power by force, which will lead to tyranny and the dictatorship of one man (which was the cause of her major dispute with Lenin). Instead, she supported the participation of the party in the Weimar elections.
Lenin will later support her ideas in his famous pamphlet The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky, in which he harshly criticizes the Social Democrat's distortion of Marx's ideas on democracy.
Furthermore, he writes in a letter to Shlyapnikov after the assassination of Rosa:

“I hate and despise Kautsky now more than anyone, with his vile, dirty, self-satisfied hypocrisy ... Rosa Luxemburg was right when she wrote, long ago, that Kautsky has the ‘subservience of a theoretician’ – servility, in plainer language, servility to the majority of the Party, to opportunism”..


Bernstein's arguments in favor of Reformism:

- In Opposition to Marx, he deduces that the capitalist system has shown its adaptability by improving the economic, social and political conditions of the working class. Also, the social contradictions between the classes were decreasing as the middle class was growing, which, according to him, is verified by the absence of recent major violent clashes between the classes.
- the Cartels, trusts and credit institutions are capable to gradually regularize the anarchic nature of the system and to alleviate the antagonisms in capitalism.
- The function of the credits is to expand production and facilitate exchange. They are powerful instruments that have the ability to circumvent the capitalist crisis.
- he argues that parliamentarism and bourgeois legality meant the end of violence as a factor in historical development. Therefore, the Party must renounce the use of violence in order to reach socialism.
- He looked upon the trade unions as a weapon capable of weakening capitalism.



To Bernstein's twaddle, Luxembourg put forward strong arguments to refute with incisiveness his outlook on Socialism:

- The Cartels fail to attenuate the contradictions of capitalism. On the contrary, they aggravate the antagonism existing between the mode of production and exchange. "They aggravate, furthermore, the antagonism existing between the mode of production and the mode of appropriation by opposing, in the most brutal fashion, to the working class the superior force of organised capital, and thus increasing the antagonism between Capital and Labour."
- The role of credits in encouraging speculation, is another factor increasing the instability of the capitalist mode of production.
- The trade unions, Co-operatives and reform movements are unable to oust capitalism.
- The struggle for reforms cannot alter the slave position of the working class, for that the State is a class State, established by the capitalist class and carried on in its interests: “... the present State is not ‘society’ representing the ‘rising working class’. It is itself the representative of capitalist society. It is a class State”.
- The capitalist system can not be superseded by means of the legal forms established by itself, but only by revolution: "The use of violence will always remain the ultima ratio for the working class, the supreme law of the class struggle, always present, sometimes in a latent, sometimes in an active form. And when we try to revolutionise minds by parliamentary and other activity, it is only in order that at need the revolution may move not only the mind but also the hand."
Thus, the workers should not abandon the conquest of political power and are compelled to resort to revolutionary violence against exploitation and oppression.
- The labors unions are not a substitute for the liberation of the working class.


I have read these pamphlets in Arabic 20 years ago. I have Re-read the first one in English when a friend borrowed me the edition with the introduction by Helen Scott.
This book is interesting. I recommended it even if you don't share her political views. Rosa's pertinent and perceptive writings and the ideas they evoke are as relevant today as when they were written more than a century ago.
It is also an enjoyable read for the witty remarks, her writing style and 'sens de la formule' (even though the economical subjects are never amusing, not a single bit).
Reading how Luxembourg has ripped off Bernstein's theoretical eccentricities and ridiculing him was as entertaining as watching Lisa Lampanelli aka the Queen of Mean (however more articulate, less vulgar) roasting a politician:

"For these reasons, we must say that the surprising thing here is not the appearance of an opportunist current but rather its feebleness. as long as it showed itself in isolated cases of the practical activity of the party, one could suppose that it had a serious political base. but now that it has shown its face in Bernstein’s book, one cannot help exclaim with astonishment, “What? Is that all you have to say?” Not the shadow of an original thought! Not a single idea that was not refuted, crushed, reduced into dust by marxism several decades ago!
It was enough for opportunism to speak out to prove it had nothing to say. In the history of our party that is the only importance of Bernstein’s book.
Thus saying goodbye to the mode of thought of the revolutionary proletariat, to dialectics and to the materialist conception of history, Bernstein can thank them for the attenuating circumstances they provide for his conversion. For only dialectics and the materialist conception of history, magnanimous as they are, could make Bernstein appear as an unconscious predestined instrument, by means of which the rising working class expresses its momentary weakness but which, upon closer inspection, it throws aside contemptuously and with pride."

(Mic drop)




(*)
At 21 years old, the great writer Brecht wrote this Epitaph in her memory
And now red Rosa has disappeared,
Where she lies nobody knows.
To the poor the truth she taught
The rich hunted and out of this world she was brought

Brecht will write later another poem titled About the drowned girl in homage to her, inspired by Rimbaud’s poem Ophelia [the analogy is obvious, as Rimbaud refers to Ophelia in Shakespeare’s play Hamlet , who also drowned in the river] :

As she drowned, she swam downwards and was borne,
From the smaller streams to the larger rivers,
In wonder the opal of the heavens shone,
As if wishing to placate the body that was hers.
Catching hold of her were the seaweed, the algae,
Slowly she became heavy as downwards she went,
Cool fish swam around her legs, freely,
Animals and plants weight to her body lent.
Dark light smoke in the evenings the heavens grew,
But early in the morning the stars dangled, there was light,
So that for her, there remained too,
Morning and evening, day and night.
Her cold body rotted in the water there,
Slowly, step by step, god too forgot,
First her face, then her hands, and finally her hair
She became carrion of which the rivers have a lot.

Btw, the great poet Paul Celan also wrote a poem dedicated to Rosa. The amazing Anne Carson analyses its symbols and metaphors extensively in her book “Economy Of The Unlost”.


(**) This theoretical and political debate among the leftists was common to all the socialist movements and is still going on over a century later, leading to the schism of major leftist parties.
Exhibit A: France. 120 years ago, after the fall of the Commune de Paris, the FSWF was characterized as "Possibilist" for promoting gradual reforms, before it split few years later into different parties, whereas the famous french Marxist, Blanqui, created the CRC. Then a debate took place about the socialist participation in a "bourgeois government", pushing J. Jaurés to leave the Party and found the FSP.. In 1920 during the Tours Congress the left wing broke away from the SFIO and founded the more radical FSCI to join the Third International. Later the FSCI will become the French Communist Part (FCP). In 1969 the Socialist Party (SP) replaces the SFIO.
The same political oppositions rose among the leftist parties after the disastrous results and consequences of the presidential elections in 2002 for the Left.
So many examples can be cited of the consequences of this ideological debate between the 'moderate' reformists and the radical marxists on the international level: The devisions of the leftist factions in Greece after WWII; in Peru; in Spain; in Algeria between the nationalist factions during the French colonization; and even the Black movement in USA during the 60s/70s. In his autobiography Seize the Time, Bobby Seale narrates how HP Newton and him founded the vanguard Black Panthers Party upon their fierce opposition to MLK's Pacifism and the Reformists' discourse. Later, Angela Davis, a modern day Rosa Luxembourg, Assata Shakur, and many other black activists will opt for violence and join even more radicalized leftist movements.


***)
The Spartacus League was a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. The League was named after Spartacus, leader of the largest slave rebellion of the Roman Republic. It was founded by Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and others. The League subsequently renamed itself the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD), joining the Comintern in 1919. Its period of greatest activity was during the German Revolution of 1918, when it sought to incite a revolution by circulating the newspaper Spartacus Letters. [source: Wikipedia]

[Valdemar Gomes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bernstein got #rekt

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosa Luxemburg was a firebrand socialist, a pioneering political woman and Marxist theorist. She was a member of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD, the same ones in coalition with Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats over a century later!) and later the Communist Party of Germany. In 1919 Luxemburg was killed by German paramilitaries after a failed socialist uprising.

Luxemburg wrote Reform or Revolution as a reaction to a book by Eduard Bernstein, another leading figure in the SPD, who argued that parliamentary democracy was the only way to achieve socialism through incremental change. Luxemburg ripped him to shreds here. It's impossible to rate this on content, but for the soundness of Luxemburg's argument it easily deserves a 5/5. Whatever your political beliefs, Reform or Revolution merits close reading and interpretation.

Is social democracy horrible? To Luxemburg yes, and man, does she make a fantastic argument. She instead believed in prolonged, armed mass struggle, a violent war against the evil capitalists of the bourgeoisie. If you want to read a forceful, passionate, well-researched polemic, this is it. Here are some edited notes I took of Rosa's (not my) ideas in the Google search bar in my Firefox browser when I was reading. They're more of a reference for me than anything else, but here we go:

Monopolization leads to less innovation from small businesses. Big business destroys small businesses by mowing them down faster and faster as capitalism and creative destruction accelerate.

Credit is bad because it creates crises through fake, propped-up money and keeps capital exclusively among capitalists. They just lend to keep each other afloat.

The theory of collapse is real and social democracy/adaptation will take us nowhere, yo, because capitalism's fall is inevitable, so we might as well prepare for said collapse.

Trade unions aren't the answer to everything because they don't control the means of production, so they can only demand certain, too gradual change and can't change capital ownership.

"Basically we no longer have here a struggle between labour and capital, but the solidarity of capital and labour against the total consumers." This is not socialist, and labor union reforms aren't enacted by the proletariat but by the capitalists themselves. Labor union gains are only "the regulation of exploitation".

Tariffs are horrible because they lead to inefficiency and prop up outdated methods of production, ergo little innovation. They're used by capitalists to fight other foreign capitalists.

Militarism is good for the capitalist class and bad for the proletarians. Capitalists control militarism, and the state values the capitalist class first and economic progress second because of concentrated capitalist power, so parliaments support the capitalist class structure.

Parliaments don't actually represent what's best for the people because they are run by the bourgeoisie.

Screw revisionism because an unbroken chain of reforms that keeps up the momentum necessary for real change is impossible, and workers will lose the desire. They will be sated by tiny reforms.

Crises are organic to capitalism because unlimited desire for growth hits limited boundaries. (YES)

"Their cessation — not temporary cessation, but their total disappearance in the world market — would not lead to the further development of capitalist economy. It would destroy capitalism."

Capitalism is now more collective because of stock ownership and has become socialized, but that collective only expands the capitalists and doesn't affect the proletarians.

Cooperatives force partners to treat each other like exploited workers, so they fail. Unions can only help to get the most benefits from the current system and cannot facilitate real change.

Capitalism does not always mean democracy. Look at the rise of authoritarian capitalist regimes (note: look at Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy later. Does this undermine the neocon democratic peace theory?!).

Socialism is the only way that democracy is guaranteed (note: I think this is a little more than misguided).

Reforms can be revoked in democracy: "Legislative reform and revolution are not different methods of historic development that can be picked out at the pleasure from the counter of history, just as one chooses hot or cold sausages" (note: fantastic use of language!).

Reform can only make changes based on the last, inferior revolution/constitution, and that's why revolution is needed for real change to socialism.

Reform is not slow revolution, and revolution is not fast reform; they have different end goals. Capitalism is different than feudalism because inequalities are not mandated by law.

"How can wage slavery be suppressed in a “legislative way” if wage slavery is not expressed in laws?" (note - Whoa.)

Democracy is vital to the socialist cause because the bourgeoisie doesn't like it. Therefore it can be used to reinforce class strife.

The proletariat will be inevitably repulsed a few times, and these setbacks will help mature the movement - so of course the movement will never be ready for power.

Opportunism is incompatible with socialism. On Bernstein's whole idea of reform, not revolution: "'What? Is that all you have to say?' Not the shadow of an original thought! Not a single idea that was not refuted, crushed, reduced into dust by Marxism several decades ago!"

What a cool, principled, articulate revolutionary.

[Amirsaman · Rating 3 out of 5]

حدود سال ۱۹۰۰ است و رزا لوکزامبورگ سعی می‌کند به کسانی که تئوری‌های مارکس را شکست‌خورده می‌دانند، پاسخی دندان‌شکن بدهد. کسانی که اصلاح کردن سیستم سرمایه‌داری را به جای انقلاب سوسیالیستی علیه آن ترجیح می‌دهد.
لوکزامبورگ از دیدگاه اقتصاد سیاسی نشان می‌دهد که حرف‌های مارکس درست بود و اتحادیه‌های کارگری و تعاونی‌ها و اعتبارات و مجلس سوسیال-دموکرات و بحران‌های سرمایه‌داری، اتفاقا باعث بقای بیشتر آن و ناسوسیالیست شدنش می‌شوند.
می‌گوید این‌طور نیست که چون سرمایه‌گذاران بیشتر شده‌اند، پس اجتماعی‌شدنِ سرمایه دارد بیشتر می‌شود. او می‌گوید مارکس درست گفت که ثروت مدام متمرکزتر می‌شود و این سرمایه‌گذاران جدید، صرفا حق «مالکیت» دارند و نه «تولید». پس خرده‌بورژوازی هم اختلاف طبقاتی را از بین نمی‌برد.
در واقع مشکل تعاونی‌های تولیدی (که خود کارگران عنانش را در دست می‌گیرند) این است که باید خود را از قوانین رقابت [با شرکت‌های بزرگ] آزاد کنند. در نتیجه باید مصرف‌کننده‌ی ثابت و تضمینی داشته باشند؛ یعنی ناچارا به تولیدات بومی (مثلا مواد غذایی) روی بیاورند و نه صنایع و معادن در ابعاد جهانی. پس این راه‌حل (که به زعم لوکزامبورگ به اقتصاد تجاری سده‌های میانه می‌ماند) نمی‌تواند تحول اجتماعی عمومی ایجاد کند.

اما در کل، استدلال‌های لوکزامبورگ --که مدام هم در طول کتاب تکرار می‌شوند-- برای من چندان قانع‌کننده و کافی نیستند؛ حتا اگر تحول کپیتالیسم را در این صد ساله در نظر بگیریم.
مثلاً این‌که می‌گوید پرولتاریا تا موقعیت پیدا کرد باید براندازی کند و حتا اگر شکست هم بخورد، این شورش باعث آگاهی پرولتاریا و افزایش شانس موفقیت در تلاش‌های آتی می‌شود. (ص ۱۰۸)

[Tanroop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, iconic, and thoroughly enjoyable, Rosa Luxemburg's takedown of Eduard Bernstein's reformism is still well worth reading.

While the work is essentially a philippic against Bernstein, it does still deal with prescient questions:

Is reform enough? Should we aim merely to make 'the poor rich', or should we change the structure of society? Should we strive to transcend capitalism for moral reasons or is it a matter of necessity? Is capitalism capable of being tamed? Is it adapting faster and in more ways than Marx could have predicted?

Rosa Luxemburg comes down firmly on the side of revolution, Marxism, and the absolute necessity of socialism. In the process of dismantling Bernstein's work, she articulates her own understanding of capitalism and the historic task of the labour movement. There is also a good deal of Marxist theory here, and I'm really glad I had read about half of Capital Volume 1 before this.

I would imagine this book has had a very interesting life since it was published more than a century ago. During WW1, the Great Depression, and the rise of fascism, Rosa's arguments were vindicated. During the golden age of Keynesianism and the New Deal, I suspect Bernstein's followers felt that they had gained the upper hand. However, that period represented an "attack on the twigs of the capitalist tree" rather than a revolutionary project, a fact that may have laid the foundation for its disintegration. Knowing that, coupled with the rise of the right and the climate breakdown that is already upon us, the question posed by Rosa Luxemburg more than a century ago seems worth asking once more: Reform or Revolution?

[Andrew]

Supposedly a Marxist classic, although it's hard to see why. This is a riposte to Edouard Bernstein, and, guess what, people remember Rosa Luxemburg, they don't remember Bernstein, so it's kind of hard to figure out what exactly Luxemburg is responding to specifically. The follow-up question to Luxemburg is what real revolution would look like -- I think it's safe to say that socialism won't be achieved exclusively through parliamentary means, but it's hard to imagine that not playing a vital role (raise your hand if you think that anything resembling a cohesive armed revolt could have even the remotest shot at success in contemporary America, especially given the atomized, immiserated state that we would have to reach to even contemplate it, which would sap our will to live long before it prompted us to rebel). She may well have been fully right in the context of early 20th Century Europe, but shit's gotten weird, and I'm still trying to figure out what revolution can look like in the 21st Century.

[Mark]

**SPOILER ALERT**

It’s Revolution.

[Otto Lehto · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written critique of Eduard Bernstein's reformist social democracy (or "evolutionary socialism"). Despite my disagreements with Luxemburg's starry-eyed adherence to Marxist doctrine, her discipleship does not dull her wit or make her pen run any less sharply across the yellowy page in condemnation of suspected bourgeois heresies. Highly recommended as a good summary of highly evolved Marxist dogma - in the form of "scientific socialism" - for any student of history.

It should be remembered that Marxism used to be a comprehensive doctrine, a solid edifice, on the basis of which hundreds of thousands of lives, upon questionable interpretations, were molded, improved and/or destroyed during the 20th century.

Rosa Luxemburg is one of that tradition's absolute luminaries. A great figure and a good writer, even for a non-Marxist. Look no further for a systematic exposition of the great conflict between revolutionary and reformist socialism.

[Ruxandra Grrr · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, I keep joking that I'm not smart enough to read this type of theory (my brain really has trouble with abstract concepts sometimes), but I really liked this, surprisingly! And I understood a lot more than I though I would. My appreciation for Rosa increased even further and I'll enjoy my walks around Rosa Luxemburg Platz even more now. This is a critique of reformism, and I was easy - I already don't believe we can reform capitalism, so it was very up my alley already, but I enjoyed it when Rosa was throwing shade at this reformist Bernstein guy (and others):

Hugging their brain-child, Bernstein, Böhm and Jevons, and the entire subjective fraternity, can remain twenty years or more before the mystery of money, without arriving at a solution that is different from the one reached by any cobbler, namely that money is also a “useful” thing.

I listened to it as an audiobook and the narrator was okay, but I would have preferred a spirited woman to tell it to me in my ear. For part of it, I also was following it along here.

Read as part of a birthday month project to try stuff from authors I share a birthday with! And proud to share a birthday with Rosa Luxembourg! (Also very much recommend this graphic novel about her life: Red Rosa: A Graphic Biography of Rosa Luxemburg

Assassin’s Apprentice
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories
Almanac of the Dead

Also sharing a birthday with, but not part of this project:
House of Leaves

[Pablo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rosa Luxemburgo, no solo una gran intelectual revolucionaria, que hablaba hasta 11 idiomas, sino que comprometida de manera activa con los movimientos populares de su época. En los tiempos en que las mujeres eran doblemente explotadas (y siguen, solo en menor grado): por ser mujeres, y por ser pobres. La Rosa Roja se imponía no solo como un ejemplo para su género, sino para la humanidad. En éste texto su pensamiento político aparece más que claro: la igualdad solo se alcanza superando el sistema anterior, no reformandolo.

Fue asesinada de un culatazo en la cabeza, y tirada al rio.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosa does a great job of busting Bernstein’s position on reforming capitalism. Too bad the party marginalized her views. Most of her arguments are disturbingly relevant to today’s political and economic situation but sadly, today like in 1900 when she wrote it at 27 years old, overthrowing capitalism doesn’t capture the imagination of those who reap the benefits of it, and thus the armchair liberals/socialists continue to push a reformist agenda of change.

[E Money The Cat · Rating 4 out of 5]

No wonder no one talks about this Eduard Bernstein fella, Rosa roasted him right out of history back in 1899.

I took my time taking this one in. The edition I read has a copy of Bernstein’s original article in the appendix so I could jump back n forth with what Rosa is responding to.

“[Bernstein] advises the proletariat to disavow its socialist aim, so that the mortally frightened liberals might come out of the mousehole of reaction.” Sounds so familiar.

More of her actual ideas? Idk go read Kevin (Capitalism is the Conspiracy)’s review instead!

[Itzipan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pues una dura la rosi que decir. Gora mugimendu sozialista❤️

[Renaissance Alexandre · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of a new society they take a stand for surface modification of the old society. If we follow the political conceptions of revisionism, we arrive at the same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism. Our program becomes not the realization of socialism, but the reform of capitalism: not the suppression of the system of wage labor, but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of the suppression of capitalism itself.”

The work really speaks for itself. Down with capitalism. Down with the bourgeoisie. Long live the proletariat and revolutionary spirit.

[Armi Harmit]

Sarjassani hampaankolossa vuodesta 2018: minä, politiikan ja viestinnän 1. vuoden opiskelija luonnollisesti 1. vuoden politiikan ja viestinnän opiskelijan ominaisuudessa tuon keskusteluun parlamentarismin näkökulman. Keskustelukumppani todella monta:
- vuotta filosofiaa opiskelleena
- alkoholijuomaa nauttineena
väsynein sanankääntein lopettaa keskustelun alkuunsa ehdottamalla Rosa Luxemburgin lukemista, josko liberaalidemokraattinen hömppä sillä hälvenisi. Kismitti. Kiitos talosta poismuuttaneen punkkarin ja tämän, rapun muuttojen myötä kasautuvalle, taakse jätettyjen tavaroiden ja ajatusrakennelmien installaatiolle hyljätyn läpyskän, sain katarsikseni tuon keskenjääneen keskustelun osalta.

Usko eduskuntainstituutioon ei ottanut romahtaakseen, mutta sen sijaan käsillä oli kiehtova interventio erään opportunismista syytetyn Bernsteinin kirottuihin kirjoitteluihin, tämä kun oli vähittäisen uudistustyön kannalla vallankumouksen kustannuksella.

Päivänpolttavuus reippaasti yli sadan vuoden takaa avaa paremmin kuin mikään silmät oman historiallisen hetken ohikiitävyydelle, s. 81-82: "Opportunistisilla virtauksilla on liikkeessämme jo varsin vanhat perinteet, jos ottaa huomioon hajanaiset ilmaukset, kuten tunnetussa höyrykonesubventiokysymyksessä." Tunnetussa höyrykonesubventiokysymyksessä! Sama kohtalo on tunnetun Kulmunin viestintäskandaalikysymyksen, laajasti debatoidun Suomen NATO-kannan muodostamiskysymyksen, maankuulun hoitajien työmarkkinatilanteen ratkaisemisen kysymyksen... "Hajanaiset ilmaukset" yhdistää kuitenkin. Täytyy koittaa muistaa kirjoittaa oman ajankohdan ohikiitävyyden muistaen, vuosilukuja ja alaviitteitä viljellen.

Ja se eduskunnan ongelma: kapitalistisia etuja ilmentävässä valtiossa ei sosiaalidemokraattinen fraktio pysty näennäisesti demokraattisessa muodossakaan muuttamaan sitä kapitalististen etujen sisältöä, jota valtio edustaa. Vähittäinen muutos ja keinoihin keskittyminen sosialismin väistämättömän ja historiallisesti määräytyvän päämäärän unhoittaen ei käy Luxemburgin mukaan päinsä, koska kapitalistiset instituutiot sopeuttavat sosialismin eikä toisinpäin, ja lisäksi reformointi ja suitsinta (osuuskunnat ja muut) eivät kriisitendenssiä kumoa.

Muistakaa suhtautua hellyydellä, armolla ja ymmärryksellä vasta-alkajien palavin silmin ja sydämin toimitettuihin monologeihin,vaikka ne eivät olisikaan täysimääräisesti sitoutuneet historialliseen materialismiin <3

P. S. Hyvänä kuriositeettina aina tällaisten kirjojen tapauksessa sen sarjan konteksti, jossa ne on julkaistu. Vähän värähdytti "SEURAAVANA ILMESTYVÄT" -osiossa "Pentagonin paperit." Revoluutio taikka reformi, sydäntä lämmittää väärinkäytösten ja kaikkinaisten kieroilujen ja kepulikonstien paljastaminen pyyteettömästi, jotta muutoksella ylipäätään olisi lähtökohtansa tiedossa ja parantamisen vara paikannettuna.

[Claude · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rosa ends the book with a stirring defence of the importance of the dialectical method for the victory of the working class but by then it's barely necessary. The book itself is a masterwork of dialectics in application as she leaps from contradiction to contradiction, themselves framed in larger contradictions and so on and so in, painting a more and more coherent picture of whether the question of whether reform or revolution needs to be adopted as the path to socialism. And it becomes clear that the question itself is wrong. Reform doesn't look to push towards the transformation of the mode of production but the amelioration of conditions within it, which in turn requires capitalism to revert its development, which will not happen.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

no me gustaría nada ser enemiga de rosa luxemburgo

[Kári Þorkelsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hefði viljað aðeins almennari umfjöllun á þessu málefni. Þetta er í raun svar við annari bók sem ég hef ekki lesið og því vantaði soldið upp á skýringar og umfjöllun á ýmsum hugtökum eins og hver munurinn á byltingu og endur bótum sé. En annar mjög beitt gagnrýni á endurbóta stefnu og kosti hennar.

[Ariana Razavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Luxemburg is an extremely precise writer. The clearest of all the major socialist thinkers and frankly the most relevant. Chapters 3 and 4 are especially crucial reads

[tara bomp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good polemic, but falls in the awkward position of not being a real introduction because it uses Marxist terms on the regular and is only really understandable from that perspective while also not really saying anything new to someone who's familiar with Marxism. There are quite a lot of good quotes that give good explanations for why x view is wrong - not comprehensively, but enough to give you a good idea *if* you're familiar with Marxism. Sometimes the writing is a bit bad and I had a lot of trouble understanding exactly what she was saying. There's also quite a bit which is just polemic and doesn't really explain anything apart from saying "dude's bad". Which is to be expected really. Her idea of trade unions maintaining market wages is kind of weird.

Ultimately it's a pretty good but non-essential essay that gives you good ideas against reformism. It's interesting and sad how dominant it's become and how many Marxists fall into the same traps.

[celestine · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent little read that is specifically a retort to Eduard Bernstein's writings on "evolutionary" socialism and more broadly a takedown of the ideas that with some labor law reform and the running of co-ops we can move from a capitalist, bourgeois political system to a liberated, socialist system. Luxemburg proves pretty completely here that reformism within the system is bunk.

"Luxemburg understood that revolutionaries had to fight for reforms. But this fight cannot be an end to itself; revolutionaries must bring the most militant methods of struggle to the fore in order to help the working class acquire the self-confidence, organisation and militancy it requires if it is to make a revolution."

[Nabilah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book to understand why economic reforms cannot kill capitalism. She accurately predicted the fall of middle class due to their credit usage. It is okay if you don't understand the jargons, because you will understand it. It will click in your head. This is a must read for all budding leftists.

[anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

like yeah, this is just her beefing with bernstein but it's also so masterful as a socialist text?

The production relations of capitalist society approach more and more the production relations of socialist society. But on the other hand, its political and juridical relations established between capitalist society and socialist society a steadily rising wall. This wall is not overthrown, but is on the contrary strengthened and consolidated by the development of social reforms and the course of democracy. Only the hammer blow of revolution, that is to day, the conquest of political power by the proletariat can break down this wall.

[Bookworm Adventures Deluxe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernstein gets owned

[Eva Sevilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

me ha gustado más este libro que el otro que leí de la misma autora este año. creo que tiene muchos temas que siguen siendo de actualidad

[Arthur Dal Ponte Santana · Rating 5 out of 5]

braba demais

[ansar · Rating 3 out of 5]

i was reading this yesterday while i had a fever and felt like i was hallucinating at point. i think much of the latter half might have gone over my head because of this. anyways eduard bernstein you dumb as hell boi

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro es un compendio de artículos de Rosa Luxemburgo en los que refuta a sus contemporáneos del partido socialdemócrata alemán (y de paso les llama señoros con mucha elegancia)

Por eso, siento que hay partes que no han envejecido tan bien sin el contexto de la época. Ahora bien, en su mayoría da argumentos muy sólidos; se me han ocurrido multitud de ejemplos actuales mientras lo leía, más de 120 años después.

En apenas 150 páginas hay 4 o 5 reflexiones que me han parecido brillantes. Definitivamente recomendado si ya has leído algún texto marxista antes