International Socialists

Rosa Luxemburg (1871-1919) is one of those amazing figures confined to the footnotes of establishment history because her ideas, and the inspiration her life provides, are so dangerous and revolutionary. Called "the sharp sword, the living flame of revolution" by her friend and collaborator the German socialist-feminist Clara Zetkin, Luxemburg dedicated her whole life - and eventually her death too - towards furthering the cause of workers' revolution in both her native Poland, Germany and the world. Dougal McNeill  and Fleur Taylor examine some of her contributions to the Marxist tradition.On the 15 of January 1919 Rosa Luxemburg had her head smashed in with the butt of a soldier's rifle. She had been organising and agitating for the workers' revolution which was breaking out sporadically throughout German, and especially Berlin. The soldier who so cruelly murdered her was "fighting to defend" the newly appointed German liberal regime, a regime which included the formerly revolutionary German Social Democratic Party (the SPD). This party had turned against the very revolution of workers it had always claimed to support. In her death, Rosa Luxemburg provided the best argument in the case she had been proposing all her life - against reformism, against the ability of capitalism to civilise itself, and for the revolutionary potential of the working class.

 

 

Reform or Revolution?

This cowardly U-turn by the SPD when its words could have turned into actions was the final product of a long decline in the party's political integrity. As early as 1899 Rosa Luxemburg had dealt with the dangers of reformism and complacency in polemics against a fellow party member, Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein had argued that the fundamentals of Marxism needed revisiting, that some of the basic concepts were outdated. He saw the idea of "evolution" as more appropriate to capitalism in a liberal democracy than "revolution." If - according to his logic - the workers were a majority of the society then the election of a workers' party to parliament could produce the socialist society.

 

Rosa Luxemburg's refutation of this wishful thinking has relevance to New Zealand today. In her pamphlet Reform or revolution she showed clearly how parliament was a captive to those with the real power in society, the capitalists who control the wealth and means of production. Thus business attacks on our current Labour government have led them to moderate their reforms in the Employment Relations Bill, despite the fact that the majority of workers feel these reforms do not go nearly far enough. Similarly, the way which Labour, a so called workers' party, began the entire New Right project in the 1980s proves Luxemburg's theories. Parliament will reflect the balance of class forces in the wider community. It cannot create them.

 

Reform or revolution is equally scornful of those thinkers who attempt to find a division between these two terms. Politicians from Labour and the Alliance try to show their policies as working in the "here and now" as opposed to the romantic dreaming of revolutionaries. Rosa Luxemburg showed clearly how this was not the case. Just as reformist parties cannot legislate socialism, nor are they a driving force for reform. She wrote, "Every legal constitution is the product of a revolution revolution is the act of political creation, while legislation is the political expression of the life of a society that has already come into being." In other words, governments will respond with legislation to changes forced upon them from below. By acting in a revolutionary manner - through strikes, protests, occupations and the like - workers are helping the cause of practical reform.

 

An understanding of this helps us counter the arguments of those union bureaucrats who argue we ought to "give Labour a chance" to institute change. Without pressure from workers then the government will remain captive to business threats and cajoling. By working for the final aim, a revolution where the majority are finally in control of their own society, we also further practical goals in the "here and now." This was true for workers in Germany at the start of the last century - it is true for us in New Zealand now. The Fourth Labour Government revealed the dangers of waiting for a "workers" or "left wing" government to deliver better lives for the majority. This is a battle which can be won only on the streets, the workplaces and the campuses of this country.

 

 

The mass strike

OK, so how do we get to this revolution? When a revolution broke out spontaneously in Russia in 1905, Rosa Luxemburg smuggled herself into the Tsar's kingdom to observe it at first hand. She learnt valuable lessons from the experience of 1905, and the next summer wrote her famous work The mass strike. In this pamphlet Luxemburg examined the way that strikes in Russia had turned quickly from economic ones, focussed on concrete claims at an engineering work, to political ones, making demands for democratic reforms. In good times workers might be able to win limited economic concessions, but in times of hardship they will often need to defend themselves against the political system too, and this defence can often transform into an offensive against capitalist oppression. The mass strike, which stops capitalism in its tracks, was one of the working class's most powerful weapons in this struggle.

 

The German Social Democrats, as with every parliamentary socialist party before and after, saw the political role of workers as voting for change and little else. Like our modern union officials, they saw the distinction between politics and economics in strike action as vital. A strike over economic issues is valid, one over a political point invalid. This sort of logic drives the CTU's responses to the National and Coalition Governments.

 

Rosa Luxemburg saw the flaws which crippled this understanding of working class politics. Capitalism and exploitation are fundamentally connected, and so a protest against one specific form of exploitation needs to take into account its causes. In this way protests against the Employment Contracts Bill in 1991 were at once political and economic. To keep their jobs and job security, New Zealand workers needed to challenge not only their new conditions of employment, but also the government and political systems which were rearranging them.

 

But strikes are not only useful tools in the day to day political and economic struggle, what has been called the "bridge between the here and now and the socialist future." They are also wonderful opportunities for us to have experience of organising for ourselves, organising democratically and as groups, and seeing that this can work. Strike action, especially successful strike action, gives its participants a new found sense of confidence and solidarity, it counters the sense of isolation and despair everyday life cultivates so well. Luxemburg expressed this beautifully, "After every soaring wave of political action there remains a fertile sediment from which sprout a thousand economic struggles the economic struggle continues the permanent reservoir of working class strength from which political struggle always imbibes new strength." In other words, confidence builds more confidence, small struggles lead to greater struggles. In New Zealand this became obvious in the tertiary fees campaigns. In 1993 a mass occupation of Otago University's Registry radicalised many students and led to more widespread and bigger actions in the following years.

 

Confidence in one area can lead on to another. In this way women workers who engage in an economic struggle can find the confidence to collectively challenge sexual harassment by foremen. This happened in the Russian strikes of 1905 which so inspired Rosa Luxemburg. Similar examples can be found in the struggle against racism in the United States.

 

The mass strike is a way the majority can take events into their own hands. It is an expression of the true vision of democracy. From it we can learn how to organise collectively, how to stand up to the system and how to fight together. We learn from the mass strike that we're not as stupid and useless as the mythologies of management and leadership spun under capitalism would have us believe. Luxemburg writes that, "in order that the working class may participate en masse in any direct political action, it must first organise itself, which above all means that it must obliterate the boundaries between factories and workshops which the daily yoke of capitalism condemns it to."

 

Strikes on their own will not overthrow a system as entrenched as capitalism. Trade union officials work their hardest to contain them, and without a revolutionary organisation strikes can lose momentum and political direction. But they can provide a spark for swift, sudden and unexpected radicalisation and revolt. This is the legacy of 1905, echoing through history still, from Paris in 1968 to Seattle just last year.

 

 

Democracy

Not only do Rosa Luxemburg's writings provide valuable ideas in the struggle for socialism, her works stand in stark and inspiring contrast to those thinkers who have viewed socialism as something to be imposed, something which can be achieved through terror and compulsion. It was not for nothing that Stalin posthumously condemned Rosa Luxemburg, for her socialism and democracy were both inconceivable without the other. Her works stand in the classical Marxist tradition of seeing socialism as something which only the immense majority of society can achieve for themselves and by themselves. It cannot be imposed by either parliament in Labour Party style or by a tiny force of "enlightened" terrorists. Luxemburg expresses this with characteristic elegance, "Socialism will not and cannot be created by decrees; nor can it be established by any government, however socialist. Socialism must be created by the mass of the population themselves where the chains of capitalism are forged, there they must be broken."

 

But socialism is not only the creation of a truly democratic society. It is the establishment of a truly human society. Rosa Luxemburg's writing sparkles with this sense of "honest indignation," that Marxists must focus on economics and politics not because they are the stuff of life, but because they dominate our lives. She loved cats - Lenin could not discuss politics with her until he had asked after her beloved Mimi! - gardening, reading and music. Her life was focussed around achieving revolution so the real business of life, developing our own abilities and potentials, could be truly achieved.

 

Rosa Luxemburg was realistic about this revolution. She realised that capitalism will not be overthrown merely by being ignored, as the dismal failure of hippy communes attests. She knew that those with all the power at the moment would not give it up without a fight. But sometimes pacifism can lead to more death than swift response, and Luxemburg saw the necessity of tragedy capitalism had forced on its opponents. In lines all revolutionaries should take to heart, she wrote in the newspaper Rote Fahne  (Red Flag) during the 1918 revolution, "Rivers of blood streamed [during World War One]. Now we must be sure to preserve every drop of this precious liquid with honour and in crystal glasses. Uncurbed revolutionary energy and wide human feeling - this is the real breath of socialism. It is true that a whole world has to be overturned, but any tear that could have been avoided is an accusation; a man who hastens to perform an important deed and unthinkingly treads upon a worm on his way is committing a crime."

 

Like any socialist, Rosa Luxemburg made many mistakes, both theoretical and political. Her desire for unity lead her to stay in the SPD long after it had degenerated into time serving and reformism. The German revolution was marred by disorganisation on the part of the Spartakus League - Luxemburg and Liebknecht's embryonic communist party - and her major economic work, The accumulation of capital, has generated enormous controversy. Yet the enduring legacy of Rosa Luxemburg for socialists is one of inspiration: of inspirational ideas and an inspirational life, both dedicated towards the destruction of the inhumanity, the waste and the senselessness which govern the modern world. Luxemburg worked tirelessly for the vision set out in Marx's Capital for a "society in which the full and free development of every individual is the ruling principle."

 

This is the society we are still fighting for today.