ALLIANCE REPRINT SERIES:
Revisionism In Germany: To 1922.
Communist League; January 1977.


APPENDIX:
The Influence Of Rosa Luxemburg on the CPG
 
    The dominant theoretical influence on the Communist Party of Germany in its early years was that of Polish-born Rosa Luxemburg, who moved to Germany in 1897:     In her work "The Accumulation of Capital", published in 1913, Rosa Luxemburg put forward the view that a capitalist society could solve the problem of capital accumulation only
by expanding into pre-capitalist economies.. and that when these areas had been absorbed, capitalism would break down":     Lenin's marginal notes to "The Accumlation of Capital", are full of comments such as "False!" and "Nonsense!", and he described her main thesis as a "fundamental error". (V.I. Lenin: Notes on R. Luxemburg’s Book; "The Accumulation of Capital", in: "Leniniski Sbornik", Volume 22; Moscow; 1933; p.343-6).

    In accordance with this thesis, Rosa Luxemburg saw no revolutionary potential in the peoples of the colonial-type countries and denied the possibility of genuine wars of national liberation under imperialism. In her pamphlet "The Crisis of German Social Democracy, written in 1915 under the pseudonym of "Junius" and published in 1916, she declares:

    Commenting on her opposition to the Polish national-liberation movement, against the domination of tsarist Russia, Lenin said:     After the socialist revolution in Russia in November 1917 Rosa Luxemburg condemned the national policy of the Bolsheviks as "counter-revolutionary":     Similarly, Rosa Luxemburg failed to see, even in a country where the bourgeois-democratic revolution, had not been carried through, the revolutionary potential of the peasantry, regarding it as, in the long run, a reactionary force -- a view which became a cornerstone of the Trotskyite theory of "permanent revolution":     On the basis of this view, after the socialist revolution in Russia in November 1917 she condemned the Bolshevik policy of redistributing the land among the peasantry as "counter-revolutionary":     Rosa Luxemburg saw the mass strike with economic aims as the decisive form of the revolutionary struggle of the working class:     But the economic strike, which to Rosa Luxemburg, was the decisive form of the revolutionary struggle of the working class, is predominantly spontaneous in character:     On the basis of the view of the predominantly spontaneous character of "the decisive form of the revolutionary struggle of the working class, Rosa Luxemburg opposed as "dangerous" and "Blanquist" Lenin's concept of the necessity for a disciplined vanguard party based on firm democratic centralism. In her article "Organisational Questions of Social Democracy", first published in 1904 as a review of Lenin's "What Is to be Done?" she writes:     Rosa Luxemburg shared with Leon Trotsky anti-Leninist views not only on the question of the role of the peasantry and on the question of the organisation of the party of the working class, but also on the question of the possibility of building socialism in a single country:     And like Trotsky, she strived during the years before the First World War to bring about a reunification of the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks i.e., to obliterate the dividing line between Marxism-Leninism and' revisionism:     Holding these views, Rosa Luxemburg could not but be hostile to the Soviet regime established in Russia under the leadership of the Bolsheviks in November 1917.     Following Stalin's statement that many of the serious political mistakes committed by the Communist Party of Germany were the result of Social-Democratic survivals which must be eliminated (September 1924), the "Theses on the Bolshevisation of the Parties of the Comintern", adopted by the Fifth Plenum of the ECCI March/April 1925, drew special attention to the harmfulness of Luxemburgism:     The theses described the most important errors of Luxemburgism as follows:     In November 1931, Stalin's letter to the journal "Proletarian Revolution" was published, under the title of "Some Questions concerning the History of Bolshevism''.
    This reiterated in stronger terms the criticism made of the theory and practice of Luxemburgism:     The letter was attacked immediately by the open revisionists, such as Leon Trotsky:     When the concealed revisionists threw off their mask in 1956, they too strongly denounced Stalin's Letter:     Trotsky, in the article mentioned above, was also indignant that in his letter Stalin had "credited" Rosa Luxemburg and Parvus (i.e., Alexander Helphand) with having invented the theory of "permanent revolution", and pointed out that in "On the Problems of Leninism", published in 1926, Stalin had "credited" Parvus and Trotsky with having first put the theory forward. Stalin clarified his position in January 1932:     On January 8th., 1932, the organ of the. Communist Party of Germany "Rote Fahne" carried an article endorsing Stalin's letter and declaring that the influence of Luxemburgism had been "the greatest obstacle" to the development of a Marxist-Leninist Party in Germany:     An article written by Fritz Heckert and published later in January 1932 to commemorate the anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg's murder, followed the same lines:

For Main article on the CPG: Revisionism in CPG to 1922
For CPG in the Anti-Fascist Struggle of the 1930's go to:
Bland Correspondences: Debate Within the MLOB


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