The
Classics, New Century, Part 7c
“Leninism or Marxism?”
What we
have with Rosa Luxemburg’s so-called “Leninism or
Marxism?”, and Lenin’s reply to
it, (downloads are linked below) is a partial record of an attempted comprehensive
political mugging of Lenin at an early stage. By 1904 Lenin was already seen as
the most clear-minded and exceptional revolutionary leader in the world, including
by his opportunist, reformist Russian opponents, and also by the leaders of the
well-established, quite large, and legal “Social Democracy” of Germany.
Reading
Lenin’s reply it is clear that at this point the gains of the Second Congress
had been lost, and that not only Rosa Luxemburg but also the “Pope” of Social
Democracy at the time - the German, Karl Kautsky - had turned against Lenin.
So had Georgi Plekhanov, one of the
founders of Russian socialist exile politics (The Emancipation of Labour Group)
and Lenin’s close comrade in their
“brilliant three-year campaign” prior to the Second Congress, based around the
magazine Iskra, of which Lenin had
been the founder and editor.
The
Mensheviks had got back into power after their defeat at the 1903 RSDLP Second
Congress by special pleading and blackmail. Once inside the political tent, they
had forced out the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks now controlled Iskra, and hardly allowed the Bolsheviks
to have any space in it. They controlled the RSDLP Central Committee, and were
refusing to hold another Congress. The Mensheviks even wanted to expel Lenin
for the fact that he had founded another magazine called Vperyod, which later became Proletary,
to carry on the work of the old Iskra.
Here in 1904
we find Rosa Luxemburg, who had in 1900 resoundingly vanquished the chief
reformist, Bernstein, now attacking Lenin. It is impossible not to think that
she has been deceived into turning 180 degrees in this way, against her natural
ally, Lenin, especially in the light of the subsequent history when in 1914 Lenin
and Luxemburg became the two outstanding opponents of the capitulation of the
Second International to national chauvinism, Imperialism and war.
In 1914 the
German Social Democrats under Kautsky voted to support the Imperialist war. Rosa
refused, and instead helped start the Spartacus League, a German equivalent of
the Russian Bolsheviks. The Bolsheviks also refused to support the war. Kautsky
sold out and was eventually damned by Lenin in his classic 1918 work “The
Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky”; but Kautsky continued
spreading lies until his death in 1938. Rosa Luxemburg did not sell out, and she
died a martyr in 1919 at the hands of the reactionary fore-runners of German
fascism.
In 1904 it
looks as if Lenin is isolated, with only Comrade Galyorka to support him. Yet
he stages a comeback, to become in practice the greatest revolutionary leader
the world has ever known. How does this happen? From other writings it is clear
that Lenin, both before the Congress and after it, was relying not on the top leaders,
nor on the intellectuals, but upon those much closer to the working-class
rank-and-file. Lenin had done what the supporters of Jacob Zuma did from 2005
to 2007 in South Africa. He had made sure that the branches were with him.
With the
help of the base, Lenin pulled the superstructure back into shape. The third
RSDLP Congress, a firmly Bolshevik Congress, was held on 1905.
Rosa
Luxemburg’s essay, when read with the benefit of Lenin’s reply, is revealed as
a very poor piece of work indeed. The subsequent history of this document of
Rosa’s, as told by MIA, is one of repeated exploitation. It has been reprinted
several times but always without the inclusion of Lenin’s reply. Rosa was used
in her lifetime, to write this false denunciation of Lenin for “military
ultra-centralism” and other spurious accusations, and after her death she continued
to be so used. The denunciation is false, because there is no opposition
between "Leninism" and "Marxism".
The whole
story is a classic cases-study in political deception, recovery, damnation and
triumph.
Please download and read the text via the following
link:
Leninism or Marxism?,
Rosa Luxemburg, 1904 (7279
words)
Lenin’s Reply to Rosa
Luxemburg, 1904 (4632 words)
Further
reading:
Reform or
Revolution?, Rosa Luxemburg, 1900 (10250 words)
What Is To
Be Done?, Parts B and C, Lenin, 1902 (8369 words)
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