A SELECTION FROM ROSA LUXEMBURG

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32880, 1 April 1972, Page 10

A SELECTION FROM ROSA LUXEMBURG

Ron Luxemburg: Selected Political Writings. Edited by Robert Looker. Jonathan Cape. 309 pp. After almost 90 years of neglect, following the failure of the Spartakusbund’s 1919 coup and her own murder, Rosa Luxemburg once again stands in the forefront of Marxist theoreticians. To many members of the new Left, indeed, she stands in the very forefront, admired and imitated much more than any of those—Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin and Mao—who for so long seemed to say all that needed saying about socialism and revolution. Regarding the Russian brand of Communism as a bureaucratic, totalitarian perversion of Marxist principles; and dubious about the applicability of Maoist theory and practice to the European situation, the young radicals of France, Italy. Germany and elsewhere look to Rosa Luxemburg for a "new

Marxist theory and tactic—vital, idealistic, and humane* What they find is not always, perbut her influence is, without doubt, enormous. It was she, after all, not Unin or Trotsky or Mao,'who was hailed as the prophet by the young Frenchmen in May, 1968, because it was fief theory of creative leadership (a theory which has come to be known, somewhat misleadingly, as that of the “spontaneous revolution”) which was most in tune with what happened in France, not the emphasis on party organisation laid down by Lenin and his successors and imitators. That the French Communist Party, mistrusting such a phenomenon, opted for the Gaullist “status quo,” and so lost a unique opportunity to lead a ready-made revolution, would not have surprised Rosa Luxemburg. She had, after all, pointed out the deficiencies of a Leninist-style party in her critique

of the Russian Revolution, a document of enormous insight and prophetic power, published posthumously in Of that critique, two chapters, VI and VIII, are included in Mr Looker’s selection. We could wish for more, but since "The Russian Revolution” is fairly readily available elsewhere, the editor is right to limit his selection from it ana include earlier and less accessible material. This includes Rosa Luxemburg’s best work in refutation of'Bernstein and the Social Democrat revisionists, on the failure of socialism in 1914; the problem of the International, and. the need for revolution in post-war .Germany. Combining passion and crystal - clarity, Rosa Luxemburg's work makes exhilarating reading. Mr Looker is to be thanked for making such a representative selection of it available. For'those who wish to go further, a select bibliography is provided.