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.
Markin comment:
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices. This year we pay special honor to American Communist party founder and later Trotskyist leader, James P. Cannon, Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, and German Left Communist Karl Korsch.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*******
Antonio Gramsci 1919
Chronicles of the new order
Source: L'Ordine Nuovo, 13 September 1919;
Transcribed: by Michael Carley.
The engineering workshop Brevetti-Fiat — the largest in Italy — has established the council of factory commissars. It is the first concrete realization of a thesis put forward by “Ordine Nuovo”: the event, which has filled the souls of our worker comrades with enthusiasm and active fervour, belongs then, a little, also to us. The example will be quickly copied in the workshops of Turin: the working masses feel that they have begun the trying of a union experiment absolutely new in Italy, that they have found the possibility, with their own methods and their own ends as an oppressed and exploited class, of creating for themselves tools better suited to forming a perfect cohesion of the working class, the tools best suited to realizing, already, the self-government of the masses, of having begun, exactly as a worker from Brevetti said, the march “within” the revolution and no longer towards the revolution.
The formation of the council advanced with admirable rapidity and discipline, even though we are dealing with a first experience: proof of how the proletarian methods of delegation of functions are better in themselves than the bourgeoisie’s own parliamentary methods. Elections happen without the work of industrial production being interrupted, and even from this point of view the workers have shown the superiority of their systems over the bourgeois systems: the bourgeois elections are a festival of vanities, the triumph of demagogy, of the talking shop, of the lowest passions; the workshop elections happen simply as a reflex of work, between the great heaving breaths of the industrial apparatus of production, and the workers, who do not break their work of creation, keep the whole purity of their character, and their vote is also a production, it too is a moment of creative activity, because gathering in a few a necessary function of the social life of the individuals, gives a saving of energy, a harmonic and potent concentration of the efforts devoted to the aim of triumphing in the class struggle to reach the greatest end: the liberation of labour from the slavery of capital. All the workers, organized and unorganized, of Brevetti took part in the formation of the factory council (of 2000 workers only three or four abstentions are reported): the commissars turned out be elected from the organized (except one who resigned). The elections were held by section, and, in each section, by trade, so that each trade has its capable and competent commissars.
We list their names, the names of the first workers deputies elected directly by the proletarian mass, with its own methods, in its particular domain, the domain of labour:
TOOLING SECTION: Turning: Pacotto; Machines: Baudino; Adjustment: Micheletto: Maintenance: Aghemo.
TURNING SECTION: Griffa, Leone, Scicchetto, Norgia, Franco.
BRONZE SECTION: Turning: Garello, Ghisio; Milling: Fasce; Drills: Montano; Lathes: Bassi, De Prosperi, Canale.
ASSEMBLY PREPARATION SECTION: Tempering, Orecchia; Milling: Fracchia, Brusotto; Drills: Magnetti, Bodo; gear cutting: Tosatto.
BOILER (?) SECTION: Regis, Graziano.
FOUNDRY SECTION: Bertolone, Perone, Audino.
ADDITIONAL WORK SECTION: Testing: Etipe; Fasteners: Baldo; Reamers: Primo; Finishing: Castagno; Stores: Longhi.
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.
Markin comment:
Every January, as readers of this blog are now, hopefully, familiar with the international communist movement honors the 3 Ls-Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht, fallen leaders of the early 20th century communist movement who died in this month (and whose untimely deaths left a huge, irreplaceable gap in the international leadership of that time). January is thus a time for us to reflect on the roots of our movement and those who brought us along this far. In order to give a fuller measure of honor to our fallen forbears this January, and in future Januarys, this space will honor others who have contributed in some way to the struggle for our communist future. That future classless society, however, will be the true memorial to their sacrifices. This year we pay special honor to American Communist party founder and later Trotskyist leader, James P. Cannon, Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, and German Left Communist Karl Korsch.
Note on inclusion: As in other series on this site (“Labor’s Untold Story”, “Leaders Of The Bolshevik Revolution”, etc.) this year’s honorees do not exhaust the list of every possible communist worthy of the name. Nor, in fact, is the list limited to Bolshevik-style communists. There will be names included from other traditions (like anarchism, social democracy, the Diggers, Levellers, Jacobins, etc.) whose efforts contributed to the international struggle. Also, as was true of previous series this year’s efforts are no more than an introduction to these heroes of the class struggle. Future years will see more detailed information on each entry, particularly about many of the lesser known figures. Better yet, the reader can pick up the ball and run with it if he or she has more knowledge about the particular exploits of some communist militant, or to include a missing one.
*******
Antonio Gramsci 1919
Chronicles of the new order
Source: L'Ordine Nuovo, 13 September 1919;
Transcribed: by Michael Carley.
The engineering workshop Brevetti-Fiat — the largest in Italy — has established the council of factory commissars. It is the first concrete realization of a thesis put forward by “Ordine Nuovo”: the event, which has filled the souls of our worker comrades with enthusiasm and active fervour, belongs then, a little, also to us. The example will be quickly copied in the workshops of Turin: the working masses feel that they have begun the trying of a union experiment absolutely new in Italy, that they have found the possibility, with their own methods and their own ends as an oppressed and exploited class, of creating for themselves tools better suited to forming a perfect cohesion of the working class, the tools best suited to realizing, already, the self-government of the masses, of having begun, exactly as a worker from Brevetti said, the march “within” the revolution and no longer towards the revolution.
The formation of the council advanced with admirable rapidity and discipline, even though we are dealing with a first experience: proof of how the proletarian methods of delegation of functions are better in themselves than the bourgeoisie’s own parliamentary methods. Elections happen without the work of industrial production being interrupted, and even from this point of view the workers have shown the superiority of their systems over the bourgeois systems: the bourgeois elections are a festival of vanities, the triumph of demagogy, of the talking shop, of the lowest passions; the workshop elections happen simply as a reflex of work, between the great heaving breaths of the industrial apparatus of production, and the workers, who do not break their work of creation, keep the whole purity of their character, and their vote is also a production, it too is a moment of creative activity, because gathering in a few a necessary function of the social life of the individuals, gives a saving of energy, a harmonic and potent concentration of the efforts devoted to the aim of triumphing in the class struggle to reach the greatest end: the liberation of labour from the slavery of capital. All the workers, organized and unorganized, of Brevetti took part in the formation of the factory council (of 2000 workers only three or four abstentions are reported): the commissars turned out be elected from the organized (except one who resigned). The elections were held by section, and, in each section, by trade, so that each trade has its capable and competent commissars.
We list their names, the names of the first workers deputies elected directly by the proletarian mass, with its own methods, in its particular domain, the domain of labour:
TOOLING SECTION: Turning: Pacotto; Machines: Baudino; Adjustment: Micheletto: Maintenance: Aghemo.
TURNING SECTION: Griffa, Leone, Scicchetto, Norgia, Franco.
BRONZE SECTION: Turning: Garello, Ghisio; Milling: Fasce; Drills: Montano; Lathes: Bassi, De Prosperi, Canale.
ASSEMBLY PREPARATION SECTION: Tempering, Orecchia; Milling: Fracchia, Brusotto; Drills: Magnetti, Bodo; gear cutting: Tosatto.
BOILER (?) SECTION: Regis, Graziano.
FOUNDRY SECTION: Bertolone, Perone, Audino.
ADDITIONAL WORK SECTION: Testing: Etipe; Fasteners: Baldo; Reamers: Primo; Finishing: Castagno; Stores: Longhi.
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