Click on title to link to a classic exposition of the Marxist anti-war position on imperialist war,the fight against it, and the need to struggle to change the system that allows it to thrive.
On The
100th Anniversary Of Newly-Fledged German Communist Leader Rosa
Luxemburg And Karl Liebknecht-Oh, What Might Have Been-
By
Frank Jackman
History
in the conditional, what might have happened if this or that thing, event,
person had swerved this much or that, is always a tricky proposition. Tricky as
reflected in this piece’s commemorative headline. Rosa Luxemburg the
acknowledged theoretical wizard of the German Social-Democratic Party, the
numero uno party of the Second, Socialist International, which was the logical
organization to initiate the socialist revolution before World War II and Karl
Liebknecht, the hellfire and brimstone propagandist and public speaker of that
same party were assassinated in separate locale on the orders of the then
ruling self-same Social-Democratic Party. The chasm between the
Social-Democratic leaders trying to save Germany for “Western Civilization” in
the wake of the “uncivilized” socialist revolution in Russia in 1917 had grown
that wide that it was as if they were on two different planets, and maybe they
were.
(By
the way I am almost embarrassed to mention the term “socialist revolution”
these days when people, especially young people, would be clueless as to what I
was talking about or would think that this concept was so hopelessly
old-fashioned that it would meet the same blank stares. Let me assure you that
back in the day, yes, that back in the day, many a youth had that very term on
the tips of their tongues. Could palpably feel it in the air. Hell, just ask
your parents, or grandparents.)
Okay
here is the conditional and maybe think about it before you dismiss the idea
out of hand if only because the whole scheme is very much in the conditional.
Rosa and Karl, among others made almost every mistake in the book before and
during the Spartacist uprising in some of the main German cities in late 1918
after the German defeat in the war. Their biggest mistake before the uprising
was sticking with the Social Democrats, as a left wing, when that party had
turned at best reformist and eminently not a vehicle for the socialist
revolution, or even a half-assed democratic “revolution” which is what they got
with the overthrow of the Kaiser. They broke too late, and subsequently too
late from a slightly more left-wing Independent Socialist Party which had split
from the S-D when that party became the leading war party in Germany for all
intents and purposes and the working class was raising its collective head and
asking why.
The
big mistake during the uprising was not taking enough protective cover, not
keeping the leadership safe, keeping out of sight like Lenin had in Finland
when things were dicey in 1917 Russia and fell easy prey to the Freikorps
assassins. Here is the conditional, and as always it can be expanded to some
nth degree if you let things get out of hand. What if, as in Russia, Rosa and
Karl had broken from that rotten (for socialism) S-D organization and had a
more firmly entrenched cadre with some experience in independent existence.
What if the Spartacists had protected their acknowledged leaders better. There
might have been a different trajectory for the aborted and failed German
left-wing revolutionary opportunities over the next several years, there
certainly would have been better leadership and perhaps, just perhaps the Nazi
onslaught might have been stillborn, might have left Munich 1923 as their
“heroic” and last moment.
Instead
we have a still sad 100th anniversary of the assassination of two
great international socialist fighters who headed to the danger not away always
worthy of a nod and me left having to face those blank stares who are looking
for way forward but might as well be on a different planet-from me.
