Below is the "Lead-Off" that I presented at my local branch of the International Socialist Organization! I thought I'd post it here as part of my herstory articles! Enjoy!
I’d like to open with a quote from Hal Draper, regarding what Rosa Luxemburg embodied not only in her text The Mass Strike but also in her revolutionary activism, Socialism from Below, “The heart of Socialism-from-Below is its view that socialism can be realized only through the self-emancipation of activized masses in motion, reaching out for freedom with their own hands, mobilized "from below" in a struggle to take charge of their own destiny, as actors (not merely subjects) on the stage of history.”
During this lead-off I intend to offer analysis of Luxemburg’s Theory of Spontaneity and Organization, as well as highlight some of her first hand accounts of the evolution of general and mass strike beginnings from 1902-1905, and finally to draw a contemporary parallel to the counter revolutionary tradition that anarchism plays within revolution, utilizing the article in the most recent issue of the ISR, Contemporary Anarchism.
It seems only fitting to begin this leadoff with an engagement of Luxemburg’s most prevalent theory, and one of the larger thematic elements of the text, her theory of Spontaneity and Organization. Rosa Luxemburg first and foremost believed in a grass-roots method of organizing a party-oriented class struggle. She wrote, "The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles ... Social democracy ... is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh. Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone." From this we can gather that Luxemburg saw that the organic uprising of the masses and organization were not mutually exclusive, but rather inextricably linked to one another; both playing equally crucial roles in the revolutionary process. She expanded on this idea through her experiences and analysis of the 1905 revolution. During an elaboration on the eventual German mass strike, she writes, “The firm organizations, which, as the indispensible hypothesis for an eventual mass strike, should be fortified like an impregnable citadel-these organizations are in Russia, on the contrary already born from the mass strike. And while the guardians of the German trade unions for the most part fear that the organizations will fall in pieces in a revolutionary whirlwind like rare porcelain” Rosa then comes to the defense of said organizations by saying, “ the Russian Revolution shows us the exactly opposite picture; from the whirlwind and the storm, out of the fire and the glow of the mass strike and the street fighting rise again, like Venus from the foam, fresh, young, powerful, buoyant trade unions.” All this poetry is to say is that, the workers who, being the only ones capable of actualizing their own liberation, will along with their political violence also realize the need and implement their own system of organization, their party. Ernest Mandel comments on Rosa’s views of the self-emancipation of the workers by saying, “What gave the "mass political strike" such an exceptional place in Rosa’s schema was that she saw in it the essential means to educate and prepare the masses for the coming revolutionary conflicts (better still: to educate them and create the conditions which would enable them to perfect their education through self-activity). Although she had not elaborated a strategy of transitional demands, she had drawn from the sum of past experiences the following conclusions: that it was necessary to break with the daily practice of electoral struggles, economic strikes and abstract propaganda "for socialism". For her the mass political strike was the essential means to break out of that very ghetto.” Contrary to this, the conservative bureaucrats in the trade unions and the socialist democrats feared the mass strike, believing that such “rash” violent action would incite the state to react in full oppressive capacity on a poorly prepared worker’s movement, and thus endanger the existing accomplishments made in previous years. The workers, obviously, had different ideas about this…and as Helen Scott puts it, “Far from jeopardizing the labor movement, the mass strike breathed new life into it.”
Unfortunately, it is necessary to outline one of the more insidious occurrences. That of the blood bath in St. Petersburg, in December of 1905; in order to reflect on the evolution of the nature of general and mass strikes, as well as highlight what the rising in January really meant for the proletariat masses. It’s important to note that these collective strikes began as unified revolutionary action instigated by the social democrats, however their rapid dispersal into more radical local action illustrated the evolution from industrial economic struggles into political demonstrations. In reference to the revolutionary solidarity with the St. Petersburg proletariat during and after their demonstrations in December, Luxemburg writes about the speeches, and conflicts with the military, stating, “but even here there was no predetermined plan, no organized action, because the appeals of the parties could scarcely keep pace with the spontaneous risings of the masses…” She goes on to say, “The economic factor and the scattered condition of trade unionism were the starting point; all-embracing class action and political direction the result.” What this also brought to light was the intrinsic role that this played in the debate of reform or revolution. Luxemburg continued to stress that small reforms are not really the overarching goals of the revolution, but rather the intellectual implications that these reforms brought about for the worker masses. As she most eloquently puts it, “the most precious, because lasting thing, in this rapid ebb and flow of wave is its mental sediment: the intellectual and cultural growth of the proletariat, which proceeds by fits and starts, and which offers an inviolable guarantee of their further irresistible progress in the economic as in the political struggle.” To continue to reiterate this theme of natural arising, Luxemburg maintains the position that "economics" and "politics" are indissoluble, and that mass strikes are not something that can be conjured up on command or prevented; but that they spontaneously manifest when workers confront intolerable capitalist conditions.
What is so crucial to remember though, is that all of the various political and economic strike methods are fundamentally linked through the revolutionary process. For example, Luxemburg stresses the interconnectedness of the reform wage struggles with the revolutionary demands of overthrow. She repeatedly contrasts the experiences of mass strike in Russia with the discussions surrounding mass strike in Germany. The differences, as she outlines them are as follows: “Instead of the rigid and hollow scheme of an arid political action carried out by the decision of the highest committees and furnished with a plan and, panorama, we see a bit of pulsating, like of flesh and blood, which cannot be cut out of the large frame of the revolution, but its connected with all the parts of the revolution by a thousand veins.” What Rosa is calling attention to here is the dry, theoretical nature of the discussions surrounding the German interpretation of mass strike, and instead making credible the actions taken by the Russian labor movement to empower themselves through self-actualized uprisings. As she goes on to say, “Political and economic strikes, mass strikes and partial strikes, demonstrative strikes and fighting strikes, general strikes of individual branches of industry and general strikes of individual towns, peaceful wage struggles, and street massacres, barricade fighting-all these run through one another , run side by side, cross one another, flow in and over one another, - it is a ceaselessly moving, changing sea of phenomena.” And just to be sure that you take note of who wields this power, she closes her argument with this, “And the law of motion of these phenomena is clear, it does not lie in the mass strike itself nor in its technical details, but in the political and social proportions of the forces of the revolution.” And those forces, as she refers to them, are the people. The people ultimately determine the course that they will champion, of this, Rosa Luxemburg is unwavering.
In order to illustrate the continued relevance of Luxemburg’s perspectives on counter-revolutionary threats, I thought I’d incorporate an article that we’re familiar with from the most recent ISR, Contemporary Anarchism. Eric Kerl, writes, “The anarchists represented only themselves and so could not formulate a coherent set of demands-indeed they did not wish to. All of these proposals to make a “revolution” without actually challenging the state are radical sounding, but are based on the acceptance of the state-the very institution that possesses the monopoly of coercive means necessary to maintain capitalist social relations.” This sounds suspiciously similar to what Rosa Luxemburg was emphasizing in her condemnation of the anarchist approach to general strike. Anarchism does not further the revolutionary cause; it removes the actual power of uprising from the people and transfers it into a utopian headspace that serves no practical purpose other than to pontificate upon itself. Anarchists as well as Syndicalists saw the mass strike as an isolated, stand-alone measure that of its own accord would develop a desired socialist society. Therefore they became proponents of industrial, economic action instead of political. Luxemburg backs me up by stating, “The Russian Revolution means the historical liquidation of anarchism. The sorry existence to which this cerebral tendency was condemned in recent decades by the powerful development of social democracy …” she continues with, “a tendency revolutionary only in the most naked, pitch-fork sense…” again referring to anarchism’s role in the revolutionary process. The eventual loss of the revolutionary risings in 1905 established that mass and general strikes alone don’t guarantee lasting social change, again refuting this anarcho-bias.
To close, I think some of the most important lessons to be gleaned from Luxemburg’s Mass Strike, would be her exploration of the necessity of grass-roots movements and their progression from economic struggles into decisive political solidarity demonstrations, the focus on the inherent correlations between organization and spontaneity, and finally her contemporary relevance not only to our tradition but in examination of counter-revolutionary anarchist tendencies that still exist.
But because American History X taught me to end with a quote, “The Mass Strike as the Russian Revolution shows it to us, is such a changeable phenomenon that it reflects all phases of the political and economic struggle, all stages and factors of the revolution. It’s adaptability, its efficiency; the factors of its origin are constantly changing. It suddenly opens a new and wide perspective on the revolution when it appears to have already arrived in narrow pass and where it is impossible for anyone to reckon upon it with any degree of certainty.”
Sources:
Luxemburg's Mass Strike
http://wearemany.org/a/2010/06/luxemburg’s-reform-or-revolution
http://socialistworker.org/department/Opinion/Helen-Scott
http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/247
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article155
