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National Question
Rosa Luxemburg, as leader of a workers' party in Poland, a country divided among three empires - Russian, German and Austrian - had necessarily to take a definite position on the national question. She held to this position from its formulation in 1896 in her first scientific research work, The Industrial Development of Poland, till the end of her life, despite sharp conflicts with Lenin on the subject.
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
About the author
Rosa Luxemburg
500 books894 followersRosa 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
April 9, 2026
Unsurprisingly, Rosa Luxemburg is an absolute joy to read because you are guaranteed to read a well-argued hot take. In this collection of 5 essays, she advances a very provocative argument: nations do NOT have the right to self-determination.
Nationalism posed a serious ideological threat to the socialist movement at the turn of twentieth century, and Marxists had to wrestle with this question pretty much on their own since Marx and Engels, in my opinion, did not provide a coherent take on it in their writings. The Marxists of the Second International were forced to answer some rudimentary yet difficult questions. What are nations and what constitutes a nation? Where do they come from? And why were they emerging so strongly now (late 19th- and early 20th-century)?
Much ink was spilt answering these questions (which I won't go into here), and they did formulate a strong theoretical position that nearly all Marxists adhered to: that all nationalities forming the state had the right to self-determination.
Luxemburg disagreed.
It is worth mentioning here that she is strictly writing about Europe and at a time where there were only a couple dozen independent sovereign states in Europe. The most powerful ones were large empires with very diverse populations. The Russian Empire - the main target of her critique - was a multinational (more than 200 national ethnic groups) and multi-confessional state.
So, what are Luxemburg's objections to national self-determination in a multinational state like Tsarist Russia? Three themes stuck out to me.
The first is that the political program of Social Democracy already guarantees equality before the law, cultural and linguistic rights, and local self-government. Socialism already opposes all forms of oppression, including national and ethnic chauvinism. So, national self-determination has no practical purpose other than to balkanize the state and split the working class.
The second is that nationalism is in the interest of the capitalist class who want to divert attention away from the fact that the world is divided by social class, thereby hampering the development of proletarian class consciousness and impeding the class struggle.
And lastly, not all nations will have the material resources to be politically and economically viable, which leads them vulnerable to manipulation by larger, more powerful, and possibly oppressive nations, so why bother doing it?
In one of her essays, written in 1918, she severely reprimands Lenin for sticking to this principle after the October Revolution. She points out how it backfired on him. Instead of pledging solidarity, some of these nations declared independence and then carried the banner of counterrevolution. Finland and Ukraine allied themselves with German imperialism against the Bolsheviks.
One has to admit that she is making a lot of good points here. I think her arguments - paradoxically or even dialectically - are both evergreen and somewhat dated. It really depends on the material conditions. Anti-colonial and national liberation struggles in the global south are completely different contexts, and national self-determination was important in the Third World for combatting imperialism and overcoming national oppression. Her hostility to national self-determination helps explain why she is not a revered political figure and theorist like a few of her peers in the global south (let alone Poland!).
Some background knowledge of Polish and Eastern European history is necessary for one of the essays and for about half of another essay respectively.
Always great to read classical Marxian positions (even if I disagree with them) on topics that are still relevant to this day. 4 out of 5 stars.
Nationalism posed a serious ideological threat to the socialist movement at the turn of twentieth century, and Marxists had to wrestle with this question pretty much on their own since Marx and Engels, in my opinion, did not provide a coherent take on it in their writings. The Marxists of the Second International were forced to answer some rudimentary yet difficult questions. What are nations and what constitutes a nation? Where do they come from? And why were they emerging so strongly now (late 19th- and early 20th-century)?
Much ink was spilt answering these questions (which I won't go into here), and they did formulate a strong theoretical position that nearly all Marxists adhered to: that all nationalities forming the state had the right to self-determination.
Luxemburg disagreed.
It is worth mentioning here that she is strictly writing about Europe and at a time where there were only a couple dozen independent sovereign states in Europe. The most powerful ones were large empires with very diverse populations. The Russian Empire - the main target of her critique - was a multinational (more than 200 national ethnic groups) and multi-confessional state.
So, what are Luxemburg's objections to national self-determination in a multinational state like Tsarist Russia? Three themes stuck out to me.
The first is that the political program of Social Democracy already guarantees equality before the law, cultural and linguistic rights, and local self-government. Socialism already opposes all forms of oppression, including national and ethnic chauvinism. So, national self-determination has no practical purpose other than to balkanize the state and split the working class.
The second is that nationalism is in the interest of the capitalist class who want to divert attention away from the fact that the world is divided by social class, thereby hampering the development of proletarian class consciousness and impeding the class struggle.
And lastly, not all nations will have the material resources to be politically and economically viable, which leads them vulnerable to manipulation by larger, more powerful, and possibly oppressive nations, so why bother doing it?
In one of her essays, written in 1918, she severely reprimands Lenin for sticking to this principle after the October Revolution. She points out how it backfired on him. Instead of pledging solidarity, some of these nations declared independence and then carried the banner of counterrevolution. Finland and Ukraine allied themselves with German imperialism against the Bolsheviks.
One has to admit that she is making a lot of good points here. I think her arguments - paradoxically or even dialectically - are both evergreen and somewhat dated. It really depends on the material conditions. Anti-colonial and national liberation struggles in the global south are completely different contexts, and national self-determination was important in the Third World for combatting imperialism and overcoming national oppression. Her hostility to national self-determination helps explain why she is not a revered political figure and theorist like a few of her peers in the global south (let alone Poland!).
Some background knowledge of Polish and Eastern European history is necessary for one of the essays and for about half of another essay respectively.
Always great to read classical Marxian positions (even if I disagree with them) on topics that are still relevant to this day. 4 out of 5 stars.
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August 16, 2025muy interesante… flipo con el análisis histórico que tiene y la facilidad con la que lo transmite
September 7, 2024
Disagree with Ms. Luxemburg’s takes on self determination
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October 19, 2008When I wrote my symapthetic 5 part TV documentary on Northern Ireland Loyalism this was my point of departure. Luxembourg KNEW that the Polish Left (and particularly the Jews) would be worse off in an independent Poland and was proved right. This may seem a controversial position in the light of what happened to Poland under first the Nazis and then Stalinism but Luxembourg was murdered in 1919 and didn't know this. She didn't see Stalinism's wilful collusion in the Nazi butchery of the Warsaw Commune of 1944, the facile apology for this in THE NEW STATESMAN and even Isaac Deutscher's writings, Gireck's attempts to buy off the Polish working class and what happened to it, the rise of Solidarity as a legitimate political union nor its sorry degeneration (post Jaruljelski's coup) into a bourgeois restorationist party. But she'd have recognised Walenca's mix of nationalism, Catholic fundamentalism and anti-semitism for what it was and understood exactly why the former Communist Party in Poland now gets more vites than at any time since 1944
July 26, 2022
Controversial even from today's standpoint, but not without its points.
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October 18, 2022I'm not qualified to give my opinion on much said since I lack the knowledge on the subject so I shall not be rating this text, but nevertheless it was interesting and I enjoyed it.
to-keep-reference
October 18, 2016Los ensayos relevantes de Rosa Luxemburgo está recolectados en Rosa Luxemburg, The National Question, ed. Horace Davis (New york: Monthly Review Press, 1976).
Imperio Pág.77
Imperio Pág.77
October 15, 2015
rich and deep. incredible detail and vision for humanity. RIP
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews