In the late 1960s when I was in Cambridge (Massachusetts not
England) there were massive political and antiwar assemblies. If I recall
correctly one was the Rosa Luxemburg chapter of SDS. Now as a young Instructor
and grad student in the technical space I had no idea who Rosa Luxemburg was, but
the name was intriguing. Go some thirty years hence in a bar in Moscow and my
Polish partner, a former member of Solidarity and imprisoned by the Soviets, ranted
about Rosa. I was still ignorant.
But over the years I have become acquainted with the person.
You see Rosa was a founder of the Spartacists, a group of Marxists in Germany
in the early 20th century who were Communists in Germany but not
fully aligned with the Bolsheviks such as Lenin. Yet Lenin expressed his loss
at the time of her assassination by the Freikorps in 1919. Thus 100 years ago
Rosa was shot and dumped into the river in Berlin.
Her beliefs were true blue Marxist. One of particular interest
today is Rosa and the National Question. Rosa was a bright Polish Jew working
in Germany and having a doctorate from the University in Zurich. She viewed
society as demanding an overhaul and it was her ideas as promulgated in the
papers she wrote for that stated her positions. In many ways she was a pure
Marxist and set apart from the Soviet Communists. She was argumentative,
aggressive, assertive, and a promulgator of her social message.
Now the National Question I believe can be simply stated by
Rosa herself:
“Nation-states” are today the very same tools and forms
of class rule of the bourgeoisie as the earlier, non-national states, and like
them they are bent on conquest. The nation-states have the same tendencies
toward conquest, war, and oppression – in other words, the tendencies to become
“not-national.” Therefore, among the “national” states there develop constant
scuffles and conflicts of interests, and even if today, by some miracle, all
states should be transformed to “national,” then the next day they would
already present the same common picture of war, conquest, and oppression."
But Lenin was a promulgator of the "right of self-determination"
Yet Rosa noted:
'“The right of nations to self-determination” is at first
glance a paraphrase of the old slogan of bourgeois nationalism put forth in all
countries at all times: “the right of nations to freedom and independence.”
She felt such a "right" was controlled by the
bourgeois. For Rosa there should be no boundaries, no borders. Borders were
artificial means of control of the proletariat.
Thus the Spartacists were a group of Marxists disavowing borders,
against nations as false constructs.
Thus when one looks at Washington today we may readily see
many Spartacists and many Luxemburg look alikes.
One should recall what this battle did to Germany and
regrettably what happened to Rosa.
Posts
