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Reform or Revolution

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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.

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!

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.

In 1897 Eduard Bernstein, then a influential leader of the German Socialist party, the SPD (a large, well funded organization which led many unions and whose leadership was respected internationally), began publishing a series of articles in the Socialist press which were later published as a book "Evolutionary Socialism". In this work Bernstein challenged a number of the basic underpinnings of Marxism. Principally, that a revolution was necessary to transfer political power from the capitalist class to the workers and farmers. Bernstein argued instead that by using the power of the unions, by getting reformers elected to public office, by passing social welfare legislation, etc. a gradual transformation, evolution, of capitalism to socialism could occur. None of the other leaders of the SPD challenged Bernsiein's views.

Instead a young woman in her twenties, just out of college, and an immigrant to boot, took on the job. In a series of articles she took on and demolished Bernstein's arguments. She went further and argued that a rot had infected the organization and needed to be cleared out. This was Rosa Luxemburg and this is her first important book. Well worth the time to read.