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In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg Historical Materialism Book Series

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In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg Historical Materialism Book Series In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg Historical Materialism Book Series Editorial Board Sébastien Budgen, Paris Steve Edwards, London Marcel van der Linden, Amsterdam Peter Thomas, London VOLUME 31 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.nl/hm. In the Steps of Rosa Luxemburg Selected Writings of Paul Levi Edited and introduced by David Fernbach LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Translations of ‘The Munich Experience: An Opposing View’ and ‘The Lessons of the Hungarian Revolution’ are taken from International Communism in the Era of Lenin by Helmut Gruber, copyright © 1972 by Helmut Gruber: used by permission of Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc. All other translations are by David Fernbach, copyright © 2011 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data In the steps of Rosa Luxemburg : selected writings of Paul Levi / edited and introduced by David Fernbach. p. cm. — (Historical materialism book series ; v. 31) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-19607-0 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Levi, Paul, 1883–1930. 2. Luxemburg, Rosa, 1871–1919. 3. Communists—Germany. 4. Communism— Germany—History—20th century. I. Fernbach, David. II. Title. III. Series. HX274.7.L48I5 2011 335.4092—dc22 2011012271 ISSN 1570-1522 ISBN 978 90 04 19607 0 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. Contents Introduction ...................................................................................................... 1 Part One Leading the KPD Address to the Founding Congress of the KPD .......................................... 35 Letter to Lenin () ....................................................................................... 43 The Munich Experience: An Opposing View .............................................. 47 The Political Situation and the KPD (October ) ................................... 54 The Lessons of the Hungarian Revolution ................................................... 70 The World-Situation and the German Revolution ...................................... 79 The Beginning of the Crisis in the Communist Party and the International .................................................................................................. 92 Letter to Loriot ................................................................................................. 113 Part Two The March Action Our Path: Against Putschism ......................................................................... 119 What Is the Crime: The March Action or Criticising It? ............................. 166 Letter to Lenin () ....................................................................................... 206 The Demands of the Kommunistische Arbeitsgemeinschaft .................... 212 vi • Contents Part Three The Soviet Question Letter to Clara Zetkin ...................................................................................... 217 Introduction to Rosa Luxemburg’s Pamphlet The Russian Revolution ....................................................................................................... 220 Introduction to Trotsky, The Lessons of October .............................................. 257 The Retreat from Leninism ............................................................................. 266 After Ten Years ................................................................................................. 269 Approaching the End ...................................................................................... 272 Return ................................................................................................................ 277 Part Four The German Republic The Murder of Erzberger ................................................................................ 283 The Needs of the Hour .................................................................................... 290 Why Are We Joining the United Social-Democratic Party .......................... 296 The Assassination of Rathenau ...................................................................... 308 The Situation after Rathenau’s Death ........................................................... 316 The Reich and the Workers ............................................................................ 321 The Defenders of the Republic ....................................................................... 328 After the Oath ................................................................................................... 333 References ......................................................................................................... 337 Index .................................................................................................................. 339 Introduction The two paths by which socialist parties came to power in the twentieth century were, on the one hand, by confining themselves to a limited set of reforms, and on the other, by taking power without an electoral-democratic mandate. Both can be seen as departures from Marx’s anticipated revolution of a proletarian majority, but also as adaptations to local conditions that advanced the cause of the work- ing class to a certain degree. In the world of today, the one seems inadequate and the other unfeasible. Revolution against the existing power-structure offers the only way to stop the stampede into plan- etary disaster, yet this can hardly succeed except as the act of a majority. However different conditions today are from those of the early twentieth century, it is not just out of historical interest that it is worth studying the politics of majority-revolution where this came closest to success: in Germany in the years immediately following the First World-War. This politics is associated above all with Rosa Lux- emburg, despite her death in the first phase of this period of revolution. Already before the War, she had done more than anyone to revitalise Marxism against the mainstream of the SPD, whose professed orthodoxy concealed a politics of passive anticipa- tion. After the disaster of , it was around her that the core of revolutionary opposition formed, taking the name of Spartakus that she coined for it. • Introduction The Spartacus group remained small until a mass-movement of work- ers and soldiers broke out in the second half of , by which time the great example of the Bolshevik Revolution was making itself felt. But, when Germany’s revolutionary socialists came to form a new party in December , this was under the tutelage of the Spartakusbund, and it took the name Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Spartakus).1 Two weeks later, Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were dead, fol- lowed in March by Leo Jogiches. For the next two years, the orphaned KPD was led by Paul Levi, who sought to continue Luxemburg’s politics of majority-revolution and succeeded in building the KPD into a mass-party of a third of a million members. But, despite Levi’s own enthusiasm for the Bol- shevik Revolution and the newly formed Communist International, his good relations with Lenin and his readiness to learn from Russian experience, the KPD came under increasing pressure to adopt unsuitable tactics decided in Moscow. The watershed of the ‘March Action’ in led to a break between Levi and the KPD, followed in short order by the ‘Bolshevisation’ of the Ger- man Party, and an explicit rejection of the ‘Luxemburgist’ heresy. Paul Levi was years old when he became, not by his own choice, the leading figure in the KPD. As Clara Zetkin said in her Conversations with Lenin, ‘Following the murder of Rosa, Karl and Leo he had to take it over [the lead- ership of the Party], though he often enough resisted it.’2 What were Levi’s special qualities, so that Lenin would say, after Levi had supposedly ‘lost his head’, that ‘he at least had something to lose: one can’t even say that about the others [in Germany]’?3 Levi was born on March into a securely bourgeois family, typical of assimilated Germans of Jewish origin in its dedication to literature and the arts, and to the values of liberal democracy.4 He grew up in Hechingen, a small 1. After the merger with the left Independent Social Democrats in November , the Party was known as the Vereinigte Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, then, from April , as the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (Sektion der Kommu- nistischen Internationale). It is generally referred to here as the KPD. 2. Cited after Gruber (ed.) , p. 3. Reported in Trotsky , p. 4. The material on Levi’s early life here draws especially on Beradt and Quack . Charlotte Beradt’s book is extremely patchy, lacks an analytical framework, and is especially inadequate on Levi’s KPD period. The subject of Sybille Quack’s is explained by its subtitle, ‘Paul Levi – Rosa Luxemburg. Political Work and Personal Relationship’. Both authors had
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