Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolutionary Marxist at the Limits of Marxism

ISBN-13: 9783030674885 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022 / 280 str.

Michael Brie;Jörn Schütrumpf

Opis

This book analyses the development of Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) as an outstanding Marxist thinker and socialist politician in the era of imperialism and revolution. Identifying the driving force behind Luxemburg’s development as the deep unity between her passionate, emphatic life and her political and theoretical work, the authors retrace the inner dynamics of its different stages while highlighting the deep rupture caused by the experience of the Russian Revolution. On the basis of new publications of her Polish works and other writings, Luxemburg's strategic approaches are located in an Eastern European context. The authors discuss Luxemburg’s unique analyses of the first experiments in socialist participation in government, of the first Russian revolution and of the forms of accumulation of capital to outline the foundations of her novel understanding of both democratic-socialist revolution and of a society that would point beyond social democracy as well as Bolshevism – a vision that will gain new significance in the twenty first century. This book looks upon the lasting heritage of Rosa Luxemburg as the groundbreaking thinker of the unity between democracy and socialism.

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Show us the miracle! Where is your miracle?

• To be oneself in the world
• In Prison: With Herself and in the World
• Speaking Truth – Living Truth
• Freedom is Always the Freedom of the Others
• Bibliography

Chapter 2. The Blighted Authority of Engels and Kautsky

• Returning to Marx—But to Which One?
• The Maximal Programme and the Minimal Programme
• Settling Accounts with ‘Ersatz Marxism’
• Failing to Understand One’s Own Situation
• Bibliography

Chapter 3. The ‘Fully Fledged Marxist’ and the Polish Question

• The Founding of the Social Democracy Movement in Poland and its Two Factions
• Luxemburg’s Dissertation ‘The Industrial Development of Poland’
• A Return to the Polish Question—1908-09
• Bibliography

Chapter 4. Revolutionary Realpolitik

• New Questions for Old Answers
• The Strategy of the SPD from 1891
• Bernstein’s Total Revision of Marxism
• The Hammer Blow of the Revolution
• The Unity of Marxism and Socialism
• Bibliography

Chapter 5. The Millerand Case – Socialist Participation in Government as a Test Case of Theory and Strategy

• The Bone of Contention
• The Gap Between Marxist Theory and Socialist Practice
• Rosa Luxemburg’s Formulation of the Problem
• Capitalism and The Class State
• The Struggle for the Democratisation of Democracy and the Question of Violence
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

Chapter 6. The Electric Age of Unexpected Developments: The 1905 Russian Revolution

• General Strike, Debate on Organisation and Political Leadership
• Lessons from the 1905 Russian Revolution
• Defeat as a Path to Victory
• Freedom for the Enemy
• Bibliography

Chapter 7. On the Defensive

• The SPD at the Crossroads
• Against ‘Nothing-But-Parliamentarism and ‘Nothing-But-Action’
• The Great War and the Search for a Strategic Response
• Bibliography

Chapter 8. The Imperialist Age and the Accumulation of Capital

• ‘Help me figure something out—but quickly!’
• Society As a Cultural Organism
• Capitalism as an Impossible World Form
• Politico-Economical Foundations of a New Strategy
• Bibliography

Chapter 9. Rosa Luxemburg’s Symphony on the Russian Revolution

• The Prehistory
• Luxemburg’s Criticism of the Bolsheviks: Too Little Socialism, Too Little Democracy
• The Anticipated Harmony of Opposites: Necessity and Freedom
• Bibliography

Chapter 10. Beyond Social Democrats and Bolsheviks

• Revolutionary Leadership and Self-Empowerment
• Revolution in Russia – An Alternative Strategy
• How the Bolsheviks ‘Won’ the Revolution and Make Luxemburg’s Nightmares Come True
• Bibliography

Chapter 11. The November Revolution: A New Beginning Violently Interrupted

• Socialism as the Order of the Day
• Programmatic Renewal and the Founding of the KPD
• The January Uprising in Berlin and Government Terror
• Bibliography

Chapter 12. Spat at, Adored, but Also Indispensable?

• Bibliography

O autorze

Michael Brie is Head of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany. Recent books include Rediscovering Lenin: Dialectics of Revolution and Metaphysics of Domination (2019) and Karl Polanyi in Dialogue: A Socialist Thinker of Our Times (2017).

Jörn Schütrumpf is Head of the Research Group on Rosa Luxemburg of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany. Recent books include "Spartacus Uprising": The suppressed report of the committee of inquiry of the constituent Prussian state assembly on the January 1919 riots in Berlin (2018) and Paul Levi: Without a drop of minions blood. Spartacus (2018).

Blurb

This book analyses the development of Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919) as an outstanding Marxist thinker and socialist politician in the era of imperialism and revolution. Identifying the driving force behind Luxemburg’s development as the deep unity between her passionate, emphatic life and her political and theoretical work, the authors retrace the inner dynamics of its different stages while highlighting the deep rupture caused by the experience of the Russian Revolution. On the basis of new publications of her Polish works and other writings, Luxemburg's strategic approaches are located in an Eastern European context. The authors discuss Luxemburg’s unique analyses of the first experiments in socialist participation in government, of the first Russian revolution and of the forms of accumulation of capital to outline the foundations of her novel understanding of both democratic-socialist revolution and of a society that would point beyond social democracy as well as Bolshevism – a vision that will gain new significance in the twenty first century. This book looks upon the lasting heritage of Rosa Luxemburg as the groundbreaking thinker of the unity between democracy and socialism.

Michael Brie is Head of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany. 

Jörn Schütrumpf is Head of the Research Group on Rosa Luxemburg of the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung in Berlin, Germany.