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The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution and the Mass Strike

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Rosa Luxemburg was a visionary socialist in Germany during the early twentieth century, who insisted that ordinary working people could fight and win battles for not only improvements in their daily working conditions, but also the struggle to create a society based on justice and equality. The Essential Rosa Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution and The Mass Strike presents the full text of Rosa Luxemburg's classics "Reform or Revolution" and "The Mass Strike", enhanced with extensive explanatory notes, appendices, and introductions. The two most pivotal concepts discussed are the questions of whether capitalism can be reformed and refined into a system of justice, and what efforts are most needed to bring about such a transformation? "Producers' cooperatives can survive within capitalist economy only if they manage to suppress, by means of some detour, the capitalist-controlled contradiction between the mode of production and the mode of exchange. And they can accomplish this only by removing themselves artificially from the influence of the laws of free competition. And they can succeed in doing the last only when they assure themselves beforehand of a constant circle of consumers, that is, when they assure themselves of a constant market." A treasure of political science history, offering valuable insights that transcend its time.

Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist revolutionary and a member of the SPD in Germany in the early 20th century. She became actively involved in Socialist politics early in her life, and was one of the few radical left-wing figures that opposed Lenin's and Trotsky's Bolshevik dictatorship and their political and terror practises in the Russian Revolution. Her brand of Marxism, which was much closer to Marx's historical analysis than the Communists' which followed the 1917 Revolution, focused on democracy and a belief in mass participation of the working class in the revolution and political life of the society. Although influential in the early 20th century, after her murder in 1919 and the creation of the Soviet Union, she has been largely forgotten as Leninism, or its sub-branches, took over the ideological line of the radical left until the Soviet collapse in 1991.
In this collection, two of the most important and accessible works of Luxembourg are represented. The first, titled "Reform or Revolution?" is a classic Marxist defence to the idea that a proletariat revolution is necessary to accomplish Socialism. The passage is mostly a response to Eduard Bernstein, an important Revisionist Socialist of the time, and clearly outlines where Orthodox Marxism and Revisionist Socialism differ and oppose each other. Luxemburg's argument is sharp and to the point, making it a great read even if you disagree with her opinion and approach.
The second text is titled "The Mass Strike" and it deals with the idea of the mass strike, and its relation to Socialism. Luxemburg discusses the Russian Revolution of 1905, and how the mass strike developed spontaneously by the workers, giving a Marxist interpretation to the event. This work is more technical and a bit outdated, but shows again a classic Marxist approach.

In conclusion, Luxemburg is still a delight to read, and an important thinker in the history and tradition of Socialism. Her work expresses the political and social tensions of her times, giving this work, apart from an ideological, a historical significance.

In addition, Haymarket Books put a lot of effort in the books they publish, and it shows. The edition is nice, well organised, and affordable.

Rosa Luxemburg weighed in definitively at a very young age on the question of reform or revolution in this important text, and forever demolished the perspective of Socialism via reform. By deconstructing Bernstein's work, Luxumberg reveals how reformism fails to address the inherent contradictions of capitalism in the way Marx has shown. Consequently, reformism fails to penetrate at the true nature of capital, and is unable to overturn it. Social revolution is the only way to Socialism, for the means of production themselves must be transferred to the working class for economic justice to be achieved. Although Luxemburg made some incorrect assessments of the Bolsheviks and her own SDP, her insightful political texts such as Reform or Revolution and The Mass Strike will continue to be important for workers of the world.