{"id":13300,"date":"2024-09-10T18:21:10","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T22:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=13300"},"modified":"2024-09-13T04:44:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T08:44:59","slug":"lenin-luxemburg-and-the-revolutionary-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2024\/09\/lenin-luxemburg-and-the-revolutionary-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Lenin, Luxemburg, and the revolutionary tradition\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/span>n July 30, 2024, the editors of Tempest Magazine posted an 800-word letter from us under the heading \u201cRosa Luxemburg and the Russian Revolution, A Correction.\u201d<\/a> This title, like the tag of \u201carticle,\u201d was misleading as we were not intending to offer a position on Luxemburg and the Russian Revolution. Rather, we were responding to a particular assertion about our views made by John Marot in his 4200-word review essay, \u201cRosa Luxemburg and the democratic road to <\/a>socialist revolution\u201d<\/a> posted by the editors on June 10, 2024. Our correction has resulted in a further response, posted on August 28, 2024, entitled \u201cLuxemburg\u2019s lessons and the roots of <\/a>Stalinism: A reply to Helen Scott and Paul Le Blanc.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

In our previous letter, we did not \u201cveer off topic,\u201d as Marot asserts, by focusing only on the opening of Marot\u2019s article. That was our topic. It was not our purpose, and it is not our purpose here, to engage in a discussion of Marot\u2019s particular analysis of Rosa Luxemburg\u2019s thought and related historical and economic issues concerning the Russian and German Revolutions. We were and are concerned, more simply, with his distortion of what we say in our introductory essay to The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Volume V<\/em><\/a> (London: Verso, 2024). Marot has now added new assertions about what we \u201capparently think\u201d which are also at variance with what we actually think and what we actually wrote.<\/p>\n

In his original article, Marot argues against \u201ca common view\u201d that \u201cLuxemburg\u2019s final and irrevocable verdict\u201d holds that \u201cBolshevism was incompatible with Marx\u2019s dictum that the emancipation of the working class can only be the work of the working class.\u201d Marot associates us with this \u201cthumbnail characterization of Bolshevism, and the attendant teleology\u2026 where Stalin\u2019s dictatorship appears largely as Lenin\u2019s \u2018dictatorship\u2019 multiplied tenfold.\u201d<\/p>\n

We wrote our response because this is a distortion of our position. We have both consistently rejected that \u201cthumbnail characterization.\u201d Rather, it is our contention (as we stated in our correction) that \u201cLuxemburg and Lenin were close comrades in the revolutionary Marxist wing of international socialism throughout their politically active lives, including during the period of the Bolshevik revolution.\u201d We do not believe, nor do we write anywhere, that Bolshevism led to Stalinism, nor that Lenin represents the antithesis of the political legacy of Luxemburg or Marx.<\/p>\n