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﻿<title﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, Socialism from below: The rich legacy of Rosa Luxemburg - Article﻿</title>﻿

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﻿<b﻿>﻿Socialism from below: 

﻿<br﻿>﻿The rich legacy of Rosa Luxemburg

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by Sue Ferguson﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<i﻿>﻿New Socialist Magazine, January 1996﻿</i>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

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﻿<blockquote﻿>﻿"Socialism will not and cannot be created by decrees; nor can it be established by any government, however socialistic. Socialism must be created by the masses, by every proletarian. Where the chains of capitalism are forged, there they must be broken. Only that is socialism, and only thus can socialism be created."

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So stated Rosa Luxemburg at the end of 1918 on the occasion of the founding convention of the German Communist Party. Her words were not empty rhetoric. They reflected the principles that had long guided her activity as a revolutionary socialist in Poland and Germany -- principles for which she was to be murdered less than a month later. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Her death came at the hands of the German Social Democratic Party. For 20 years, Luxemburg had worked within the SPD, often the largest parliamentary party for much of that period. Attempting to stem the influence of its conservative elements, she locked horns with its leaders on virtually every aspect of revolutionary politics that arose -- economic analysis, the role of the militarism, and the nature of trade unions. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Two of Rosa Luxemburg's most valuable contributions to the politics of revolutionary socialism are her understanding of the relationship between reform and revolution and her theory of the mass strike. These ideas hold tremendous relevance for socialists in Canada today. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿Reform and Revolution

﻿</b>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Marxists are often accused of being indifferent or, at worst, hostile to the idea that society can benefit by incremental measures in which the state makes certain financial or political concessions. Reforms can only enhance some aspect of life under capitalism; they cannot rid society of its root cause of distress, the exploitative relationship between workers and bosses. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Luxemburg begins by making this same criticism. Reforms are not transitory stages on the path to socialism. Similarly, the belief that socialism can come about by electing a socialist government amenable to implementing reforms is ill-founded. Seen as "ends in themselves," reforms can only result in disillusionment, for there is a concrete limit to the quantity and quality of reforms capitalism will tolerate. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Despite these qualifications, however, Luxemburg does not counterpose reform and revolution. Rather, she argues that it is in and through the struggle for reform that the class war must be fought. She points out that no significant reform has ever been freely granted by the state. They have all been won in struggle. And it is through such struggle that class consciousness takes shape. Insofar as struggles for reforms are seen as a way of sharpening people's understanding of the utter inability of capitalism to meet human need, they are the means of working towards revolutionary socialism. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Rather than putting its faith in parliamentary democracy then, the working class must carry the struggle for reforms to the streets. The 1905-6 revolutionary upheaval in Czarist Russia provided Luxemburg with a conception of the most effective and indeed the only truly revolutionary organizational form that struggle can take: the mass strike. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

﻿<b﻿>﻿The Mass Strike

﻿</b>﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Her analysis of this phenomenon is remarkable for the degree to which it stresses the fundamentally democratic nature of this most basic of revolutionary political actions. To begin, she notes, the mass strike is not a single, nor a linear, event. It is more accurately characterized as a prolonged period of months or sometimes years of struggle, punctuated by both devastating defeats and incredible gains for the working class. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The mass strike cannot be called into being; it cannot be "artificially made," predicted, or even "propagated." Rather, it develops unexpectedly in response to given historical conditions -- conditions that arise from the very nature of the capitalist system. An isolated struggle over a seemingly trivial affair (like the strike action at a St. Petersburg factory against the disciplining of two workers that sparked the January 1905 general strike) ends up fanning the flames of a more broadly-based resistance. That resistance constantly changes shape and direction, fuelled alternatively by economic and political demands. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

The role of revolutionaries is not, cannot be, to orchestrate the mass strike or the specific issues it raises. Instead, Luxemburg calls on organized socialists to give political leadership to the movement from below. By this she means that they should give direction to the struggle, pushing it ever forward toward socialist revolution. She emphasizes that the most important task for revolutionaries is to "never fall below the level [of struggle] demanded by the actual relations of forces, but rather rise above it." It goes without saying that the ability to act in this way requires an intimate knowledge and honest assessment of those forces -- a talent Luxemburg devoted her life to developing in herself and others. 

﻿<br﻿>﻿<br﻿>﻿

Luxemburg's politics were not immune to miscalculation and error. Her greatest theoretical and historical error was underestimating the need for a party independent of parliamentary structures. Nonetheless, her legacy is rich indeed. And it is at its most fruitful in her insistence that socialism cannot be delivered by parliamentary decree, but that democratic mass struggle is both the "living pulsebeat of the revolution" as well as "its most powerful driving wheel." 

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