Reform or Revolution [Paperback]

Rosa Luxemburg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1973

Why capitalism cannot overcome its internal contradictions and the working class cannot "reform" away exploitation and economic crises.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Pathfinder Pr; 2nd edition edition (June 1973)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0873483030
• ISBN-13: 978-0873483032
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,105,901 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brian Wayne Wells, Esquire, reviews "Reform and Revolution", January 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Reform or Revolution (Paperback)

This is an English translation of the most significant book ever written by Rosa Luxemburg, the great European socialist theorist and revolutionary. Born in Poland she gravitated to Berlin just as Edward Bernsein was leading the German Social-Democratic Party and all of European socailism toward a reformist, revisionist position which would become his philosophical legacy the to world.

From the very start, Rosa Luxemburg was the main theoretical opponent of Bernstein's revisionist theory. She critized that theory from her position in the political left. This book, written in 1900, is the classic answer to Bernstein's book, "Evolutionary Socialism" (written in 1898).

For any library hoping to survey the entire course of modern European thought this is a necessary addition.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "The choice is Socialism or Barbarism", December 26, 2003

By 

Andrew Hunt (Reseda, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reform or Revolution (Paperback)

It is right now (2004) the accepted wisdom of the mainstream of that which
calls itself The Left in the U.S. (and not only there) that the present
evils of this System-the "free market" capitalist system-are the result of
"mistaken" policies, that U.S. imperial war and parallel attacks on our
rights were invented by George W. Bush (or at best, the Republicans), and
that the best we can do-we, meaning working people and youth seeking to
resist-is hope by various ways to tame the Yanqui Empire and make capitalism
behave in a "responsible" way. More than one hundred years ago, a
Polish-born, Jewish, and-for that time, gasp! -female revolutionist Rosa
Luxemburg stood up (on a chair once, the story is told; she was short as
well) in front of the largest and best organized labor movement in Europe,
the German Social Democratic Party, and declared that while working people
can never stop fighting for our rights and our interests such as in street

demonstrations and above all the strike picket line, we will carry the
weight of this system's evils around our neck unless we have the final goal
always in mind of taking power out of the hands of the capitalists and
putting it in our own. Elsewhere she summed it up as the choice between "
Socialism or Barbarism." In today's terms it could be summed as: either we
do what the Cuban people did in 1959 and after in this country-in our era-or
humanity is doomed to a march by imperialism toward fascism and Word War
III. Read this book and you will do much more than learn about a long-ago
debate in the labor movement: you will be inspired by Rosa Luxemburg's
absolute confidence in the ability of working people in the most advanced
capitalist industrial power of her time to storm the heavens and make
revolution!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars luxemburg speaks out, January 18, 2004

By 

Barbara J. Greemway (Maryland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Reform or Revolution (Hardcover)

Barbara Greenway, a high school teacher in Maryland, January 18, 2004,
luxemburg
Written at the turn of the last century (1900), this is Rosa Luxemburg's concise but brilliant response to the question --- what is the future for the workers of the world? The debate then, in Germany, is still the same question today. Can the current system be 'reformed'? Can we have humane capitalism? As Luxemburg says in this short pamphlet, 'The historic necessity of the socialist revolution manifests itself above all in the growing anarchy of capitalism...' Although it may seem that we are further away from this debate then ever before, reading this polemic may make you think differently. Luxemburg takes up economic development, unions, and the dangers of the opportunists of the 'left'. She always keeps her remarks grounded in the scientific socialism of Karl Marx and successfully, in my opinion, argues the case for workers ultimately taking power. A strong and convincing argument for those who want to study the writings of past revolutionary leaders to prepare for fights to come. While Amazon may say that this book is unavailable from time to time, it is always available from the Pathfinder Z store listed under"new and used" at the top of this page.