More on Rosa

In an interesting paper by Benjamin Zachariah the author notes from her writings:

Rosa Luxemburg's central statement on the national question came in a series of articles written for a Polish public in 1908-1909. The issue of national self-determination had arisen in Russia after the 1905 revolution, before which it was mainly an 'urgent' question in the Austro-Hungarian empire. 

The occasion for her writing in this context was her criticism of the programme of the Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) of Russia. 

In the tradition of Karl Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme of the German Social Democratic Party, she explored the contradictory impulses of this programme. 

Its 9th point read 'that the party demands a democratic republic whose constitution would ensure “that all nationalities forming the state have the right to self-determination.”'

She also drew attention to the 7th point, 'which demands the abolition of classes and the full legal equality of all citizens without distinction of sex, religion, race or nationality', and 

the 8th, 'which says that the several ethnic groups of the state should have the right to schools conducted in their respective national languages at state expense, and the right to use their languages at assemblies and on an equal level with the state language in all state and public functions.' 

And she cited in addition the 3rd, which asked for local self-government for those areas with special conditions or living conditions of the population. 

She pointed out that those who formulated the programme clearly felt that 'the equality of all citizens before the law, linguistic rights, and local self-government were not enough to solve the nationality problem' and had therefore added another clause on national self-determination.

Now let us consider what she said over a century ago.

1. Self determination means that the groups so formed can select by themselves, as a collective, what rules they live by

2. That distinctions of people based upon religion, sex etc be abolished. This is much more that non discrimination.

3. Rights to their own language, superseding any "national" common language

4. Local self government

Sound familiar? Indeed, the Marxist agenda of Rosa and her allies have been here before, and it is here again. This is not Socialism of the 1910s in the US, Debs and my grandmother, it is what they rebelled against, Marxism.

History has examined and approached these domains before, and somehow the politicians rediscovering them are doing so devoid of any historical or economic perspective.