Reviews and Views
Volume Two
Nasser Paydar
One can be anti-capitalist and a serious opponent of class exploitation without necessarily having a clear understanding of Marx’s dissection of capitalism. Any worker who has not been distorted and frozen by one form or another of reformism is usually like this. One can speak very loudly, using the most “irreconcilable” words, about anti-capitalism, without engaging in any radical struggle against the system of wage slavery. All Leninist parties and circles, all the trade unions of the world, the multitude of academic “Marxists” and high-ranking “communist” researchers, even the vast majority of the workers of the world are like this. One can make the grooves of one’s brain a complete archive of Marx’s works, but only because one can make all those works a mechanism for distorting Marx’s words and a breeding ground for misguidance, for the perpetuation of capitalism!! Kautsky and Co. were of this type and did so. One can love the ideal of human liberation, die very sincerely and passionately for this ideal, seek help from Marx and his great teachings to understand this path more deeply, but get lost along the way and mislead others. Rosa Luxemburg and many communists were trapped in this situation.
All of the above is possible, the history of the last decades of the 19th century and the entire 20th century is full of their emergence, rise, dominance and decline. One thing is clear. Without a strong, council-conscious movement, with the torch of Marxian understanding of history, with the light of Marxian critique of capital, the working masses anywhere in the world will not be able to mobilize their forces to eliminate the capitalist mode of production. Let us not forget that we are talking about the Marxist consciousness and approach to class struggle, which is fundamentally different from being a “Marxist”, studying Marx, studying Marx, and bragging about Marx’s name and tradition. Capital must be explored through Marx’s eyes. This is the real need of having a radical anti-capitalist movement. Again, let there be no misunderstanding. The discussion is absolutely not about Marx, any kind of schooling and modelling of Marx’s beliefs and works is in turn a distortion of his knowledge and achievements. We are talking about a certain type of anatomy of capital and the real application of this anatomy in the current and class struggle of the proletariat. Rosa Luxemburg tried to find this dissection, digging through the four volumes of Capital, but what she found was not the essence of Marx’s understanding of capital, but a completely different and abnormal mixture. An incident that undoubtedly influenced her orientations, opinions, solutions and criticisms. Rosa was an unabashed communist, passionate, idealistic, bold and revolutionary. She rebelled with all her might against the shameful alliance of the leaders of the Second International with the states in the criminal imperialist war and the inhuman role of the Philipp Heinrich Scheidemann, Friedrich Ebert, Karl Kautskys in sending the workers of the world to the fronts of the reactionary war of the poles of capital power. She sided with this movement throughout the years of the struggle of the Russian working class against the Tsarist government. At the same time, she criticized some of the incorrect approaches of Lenin and Bolshevism at different historical periods and different stages of the development of this movement.
Rosa Luxemburg boldly took on these positions and critiques, but neither her revolutionary criticism of the reactionary solutions of the leaders of the Second International nor her criticism of Lenin’s strategies and views, despite all their radicality, ever rose to the level of a radical anti-capitalist critique of right-wing social democratic reformism and left-wing militant Leninism. An important Achilles’ heel of these critiques and analyses was Rosa’s deep distance from Marx’s dissection of capitalism and her abandonment of a correct understanding of Marx’s critique of wage labour relations. Luxemburg’s concern for critically examining the volumes of Capital is important in its own right. The global labour movement does not need a handful of schoolmasters, imitators, and partisans. On the contrary, it needs more than anything else informed, capable, independent, and critical activists. Luxemburg has a very brilliant record in this regard. The important problem is that she got lost in this area. The present article is devoted to this issue, examining his erroneous understandings and conclusions of Marx’s theory of accumulation and the crisis of capitalism, and reviewing his incorrect view of Marx’s dissection of capital. Let’s see what he says and how he understood Marx’s critique of bourgeois political economy.
Rosa Luxemburg calls Marx’s explanation of the extensive reproduction of capital flawed and unrealistic!! To prove this claim, she cites the first, second, and third volumes of the book “Capital” and then “Theories of Surplus Value”. After examining these texts, she concludes that: “Marx has taken four components as given in explaining the conditions of accumulation. 1. Surplus value must be converted into capital. 2. The expansion of capitalist production is carried out exclusively by the products of this system composed of means of production and subsistence, 3. The limits of this expansion are determined in advance each time by the amount of surplus value that must be converted into additional capital, 4 and finally, that capitalist production buys its entire surplus product and there is no limit to accumulation.” After attributing the above idea to Marx, Rosa summarizes her inference as follows. “There is no doubt that Marx wanted to show the process of accumulation in a society consisting exclusively of workers and capitalists, under the general and exclusive domination of the capitalist mode of production. “However, on this assumption, his diagram does not allow for any interpretation other than production for production’s sake.” (Excerpts from Rosa Luxemburg, Peter Hodis, and B. Anderson, translated by Hassan Mortazavi, pp. 49 and 52)
Rosa then, with a critical look at what she herself has credited to Marx’s account with her own criteria of judgment, asks: “Who is going to benefit from it and who are the new consumers when the path of accumulation is like this?” She begins her criticism of Marx with the “ambiguities”, “shortcomings” and “inaccuracies” of Marx’s analysis!! about the organization of capital, with the existence of “deficiencies and deficiencies and ambiguities” in Marx’s explanation of the exchanges between the production sector of means of production and the production sector of means of consumption!! She has a strange insistence on revealing the traces of these “ambiguities” even in the first and third volumes of Capital and then in the book Theories of Surplus Value!! Luxemburg criticizes Marx with indescribable seriousness for basing his work in examining the exchanges between the production sectors of means of production and production of means of consumption on the established and dominant existence of capitalism and a society consisting exclusively of workers and capitalists. Moreover, it seems that Marx has looked with contempt at the impossibility of this circular movement and its contradictions!! Rosa Luxemburg constantly repeats these words or so-called criticisms and, in each repetition, asks who benefits in this case? Or “because of whom does production become more and more widespread”!! We will address these issues and some of the more important issues that she raised under the name of criticism of Marx, but before all this and in order to properly advance these investigations, we have to go to the essence of Luxemburg’s understanding of capital and the capitalist mode of production.
All the above points and the thread and thread of all the criticisms of “Rosa” shout that the basis of his anatomy of capital is not the field of production, but quite the opposite, the circuit of the circulation and circulation of capital. He does not start from production; he returns to exchange. Capital does not base his investigation on the concept of the relation of production of surplus value; he looks at the various capitals and the ongoing exchange between them. He does not start from capital as the relation of buying and selling labour power, the relation of separation of the worker from labour, the instrument of labour and the product of his labour, from what is the essential index of this mode of production and the basis of the existence of capitalist society, he rotates among the branches and consequences and mechanisms of labour of a formulation. Rosa first lays the stone of her dissection crookedly and inevitably the more she searches, the more she wanders and moves away from the true path of understanding capital. Marx made an important and decisive discovery on the eve of beginning the critique of bourgeois political economy and in his search to find the right method of this critique. He said that:
“… the sphere of influence of production in its contradictory social form [i.e. in class formations] is not only limited to its own sphere but also extends to the sphere of other elements of the production complex. Everything returns to production and is constantly renewed on its basis. It is therefore clear that exchange and consumption cannot be the dominant factor. Similarly, distribution as the distribution of products, while distribution as the distribution of the factors of production, is itself an element of production, and thus a certain type of production determines certain types of consumption, distribution and exchange. Just as it determines certain relations of consumption, distribution and exchange” (Preface to the Grundrisse)
Rosa Luxemburg does not do this. Instead of departing from production and the relation of surplus value production, she revolves in the spiral of circulation and trade between capitals and repeatedly raises the question that if in a society with a dominant capitalist mode of production, exchanges between the basic parts of this mode of production could take place, if the surplus values produced can be realized, then who benefits?! And for whom does production expand?! A question that is very strange and irrelevant for any worker familiar with the minimum of Marxian understanding of capital. Marx explored the cornerstone of primitive accumulation or the first spark of capitalist existence in the relation of surplus value production. From his perspective, capital is value that comes into existence by increasing its value through the appropriation of the worker’s surplus labour in the form of surplus value and the continuation of this process. Capital is not supposed to be anything other than this.
That which must be profited from, that which must be expanded and expanded again, is capital itself, and we should not look for any other existence. Capitalist production is in its very essence the production of surplus value and capital, and the continuous creation of profit is the basis of its routine self-expansion and self-expansion. Luxemburg does not see this. She revolves around the exchange of commodities; she looks at Marx’s diagrams. In her explanations of how surplus values are transformed into additional capital in each of the two basic departments of production of means of production and consumption, she glances at Marx’s description of the normal form of exchange between the two departments and the dynamics of the reproduction of the total social capital, and then she goes over and over the above question in her mind.
“Here the annual accumulation continues without interruption. In each case, the capitalists convert half of the surplus value they have acquired into consumption and the other half into capital. In the process of capitalization, the same technical basis, i.e. the same organic composition or division of fixed and variable capital, and the same rate of exploitation (always exceeding 100 percent), is successively maintained for surplus capital as for original capital. According to Marx’s assumption in Volume I of Capital, the capitalized portion of surplus value first comes into being as surplus means of production and means of subsistence for the workers and is placed at the service of the ever-widening goal of production in both sectors. It cannot be discovered from the assumptions of Marx’s diagram for whose sake production is gradually expanded” (ibid., p. 53).
We see that finding the real beneficiary person or entity in the process of capital accumulation has become a very ambiguous problem in Luxembourg. He says that if all the surplus values produced by the surplus consumption of the capitalist class can enter the new accumulation process in the form of additional capital, then who will benefit and who will benefit from this expansion!! In this excursion, everything is aimed at staring and the only thing that is not commented on is the capital itself. The capital, which has swallowed up the surplus values resulting from the exploitation of the vast masses of workers, has become fatter and fatter, in every round of accumulation, it has become astonishingly bigger and more gigantic, and the capitalist production method is nothing but this. It is capital that must capture all profits or surplus values. If one is looking to find the real winner of profits, one should look at the capital and see the moment-by-moment cancerous growth of the dimensions of the power of this horror octopus. But Roza is not in this space, she continues:
“If this is so, these capitalists are fanatical supporters of the expansion of production for the sake of production, they approach this issue as if more machines were built just for the sake of building more new machines – with their help. However, the result of all this is not the accumulation of capital, but the increased production of productive goods for no purpose whatsoever”!! (The above source, p. 54) Rosa Luxemburg expresses the last part of her criticisms of Marx with surprise! We will deal with this issue, but a few lines above she pointed out points that are in turn debatable and, incidentally, cause a lot of surprise at her own words and conclusions. First of all, she suggests that Marx really, really considered the diagram of the division of surplus value into two equal parts of capitalist consumption and additional capital as a fixed model for analysing the organization of capital!! In the same vein, Marx’s allegorical and didactic assumptions about the constant rate of organic composition of capital and the unchanged rate of surplus value in the various transformations of capital or successive cycles of accumulation are considered to be his true assumptions for the anatomy of the exchanges between sections 1 and 2 (production of means of production and production of means of consumption)!! The incorrectness of these assumptions does not need to be discussed. It is clear that Marx has put forward all the above-mentioned unrealistic assumptions solely for the purpose of helping to understand and explain what the subject of his investigation is. In today’s world conditions, the consumption of the vast majority of capitalists is not even a very insignificant drop in the face of the vast ocean of their annual capital additions. In the same years when the second volume of Capital was written, it is very unlikely that even the smallest and “most miserable” capitalist of the day was forced to divide these two shares equally. It is clear that Marx has considered all these components in full and his assumptions are merely an allegory to explain the story. The same is true of the rate of surplus value in Marx’s example and the rate of organic composition of capital. The foundation of capital’s work is based on the unbridled increase in the productivity of social labour, and in this regard, the history of capitalism is also the history of the upward trend of the organic composition of capital. Capital does all this to acquire more massive surplus values and inevitably resort to any atrocities, wars, and holocausts to increase the rate of surplus value. All these are among the most obvious facts of the existence of capital, but Luxemburg, in her search for a basis for this criticism and of course with the aim of reaching very incorrect conclusions that we will see later, accuses Marx of ignoring and not seeing these obvious facts!! He says: “If we critically examine the diagram of extensive reproduction in the light of Marx’s theory, we will find many contradictions in it….” He then continues that “the diagram completely ignores the increasing productivity of labour power….” and adds again that “the gradual development of labour productivity affects both the composition of capital accumulation and the rate of surplus value. In such a way that these two cannot remain the same under the conditions of increasing capital accumulation as Marx’s diagram assumes” (ibid.).
Later we will see that Rosa Luxemburg does not stop at this unjustified method. She extends the same method of analysis and criticism to much more fundamental issues, such as Marx’s entire theory of the conditions for the realization or non-realization of surplus value in capitalist production, even the problem of the crisis of capital, and other important issues. All of these are topics that we will deal with. But for the time being, let us follow her very lively and heated criticism of “who benefits?” We saw above that, after reviewing Marx’s explanations of the ongoing exchanges between Parts 1 and 2 of Capital, she says with surprise: “… if this is so, then we must admit that capitalism is nothing but production for the sake of production.” Furthermore, “the goal is not the accumulation of capital, but the increasing production of goods that produce without any goal.” It seems that what should be the cause of the most surprise is Rosa Luxemburg’s sense of surprise at Marx’s words. Rosa believes that first. The production of capital goods, that is, the mass of goods that are only consumable as components of fixed capital, and then the advance of these goods – capitals in the form of additional capital in each new round of capital appreciation, is not the accumulation of capital at all!! It is rather a game without any purpose!! A strange sentence that cannot fail to amaze us to hear. Secondly, and even more strangely, according to her, the capitalist mode of production is not supposed to be production for the sake of production!! Rosa Luxemburg repeats this statement several times in the midst of her criticism of Marx. She accepts that surplus value has been produced. The produced value has been transformed into additional capital, and finally the transformation of surplus value into additional capital has led to the self-expansion and re-expansion of capital, she believes all this, but she insists that all these interactions are only production for the sake of production and such a thing is not compatible with capitalist production!! He certainly does not believe that the purpose of capitalist production is, for example, to meet human needs!! But apparently, he does not recognize the production of profit and the conversion of profits into new capital, or to put it more precisely and explicitly, production with the aim of profit and again profit and the self-expansion of capital as indicators of capitalist production!! Why? Because it seems that accepting the realization of surplus values and their conversion into additional capital makes the beneficiary element in the profit production process and the person benefiting from the expansion of the accumulation process unclear and uncertain, and this is not compatible with the capitalist mode of production! Rosa Luxemburg’s starting point in the anatomy of capitalism is not capital as a relation of surplus value production, but the circulation of various capitals and their owners. She does not see capital but rather observes the owners of capital. She does not find the direct and immediate conversion of the vast amount of goods – capitals produced by the production sector of means of production into additional capital in this same sector compatible with the criteria of the capitalist mode of production!! Because in this case, in her opinion, no transaction has taken place between different capitalists, and no money has been deposited in the pockets of this or that capitalist in the form of profit!! Rosa criticizes Marx for saying:
“According to the diagram, there is no inherent contradiction between the production of surplus value and its realization; on the contrary, they are identical. Here, surplus value comes into existence from the very beginning in a natural form that is necessary exclusively for the needs of accumulation; in fact, it leaves the place of production in the same form as surplus capital, which means that it is capable of realization in the process of capitalist accumulation” (ibid., pp. 65 and 66).
While making these criticisms, he also turns to the third volume of Capital, where he encounters Marx’s detailed and well-reasoned explanations of the inherent and ultimately insoluble contradictions of capital, that “the real obstacle to the development of the capitalist mode of production is capital itself,” that the goal of production is solely profit, and that this essential indicator of capital is the basis of a crisis-causing contradiction, or a multitude of his other radical analyses. However, by seeing these, he does not trace his own incorrect perceptions, but on the contrary, he registers the contradiction in Marx’s analyses!! We will also address this issue later as necessary. For now, let’s turn to Rosa’s criticisms of Marx. She says in Marx’s diagram:
“The capitalists, as a class, strive in advance to have the surplus value they appropriate produced entirely in that material form which makes possible and guarantees its use for the purposes of further accumulation. The realization and accumulation of surplus value are here two aspects of a single process. They are logically identical, therefore, as the reproduction process is represented in the diagram, the capacity of society for consumption leaves no limit to production” (ibid., p. 66).
Step by step, Rosa completes the case of Marx’s mistakes in turning a blind eye to the institutional contradictions of capitalist production! She induces her false conclusions from the content of various chapters of the third volume of Capital or the entire critique of bourgeois political economy, under the guise of discovering a contradiction in Marx’s theory of knowledge of capital. The very important point in connection with all these discussions is to find out Rosa Luxemburg’s real purpose in bringing them forward. The fundamental question lies here. What she is going to prove and what purpose she is pursuing with her so-called critical examination of Marx’s works, especially the second volume of Capital. The answer to this question is very explicit and naked from the very beginning, from the very beginning of her critical discussions.
Rosa believes that: “Undoubtedly, the vital question of capitalist accumulation is the realization of surplus value. The main condition for this realization – to simplify the discussion, we ignore the entire topic of capitalist consumption – is that there must be a class of buyers outside capitalist society. It should be noted that we mean buyers and not consumers. For the material form of surplus value has nothing to do with its realization. The decisive fact is that surplus value cannot be realized either by selling to workers or to capitalists, unless it is sold only to those institutions or social strata whose mode of production is not capitalist” (ibid., p. 72).
The real core of all the criticisms, criticisms and arguments is exactly this point above. Rosa believes that Marx based his work in The Anatomy of Capitalism on accepting the possibility of realizing surplus value in a society consisting of capitalist and working classes or a completely capitalist society dominated by wage slavery relations!! Something that is not possible at all in his opinion, is a complete mistake to accept and its proposal by Marx is full of contradictions!!! He explains in detail that capitalism produces much more consumer goods than the needs of capitalists and workers. Therefore, a huge part of these products must be purchased by the social strata of non-capitalist countries. Let’s not forget that the means of production and tools of labour produced by this system are also in excess of the demand of the owners of capital. This part of the products must also be sold to individuals, groups or organizations in non-capitalist societies. This is the basic law of the capitalist mode of production!! A fundamental law that cannot be changed or transformed in any way!! A very important and complementary point of Rosa’s speech is her extreme insistence on the non-capitalist nature of the society that buys consumer or manufactured goods.!!
“International trade, in terms of realizing surplus value and providing the material elements of fixed capital, is the main necessity of the historical existence of the capitalist system. This trade, in the present conditions, is essentially an exchange between capitalist and non-capitalist modes of production” (ibid., p. 80)
Rosa Luxemburg, following the constant repetition of these explanations, insists that Marx has ignored this necessity or this immutable principle of capitalist production and that his diagram is a complete contradiction of the laws governing the accumulation of capital!!
“Accumulation requires unlimited freedom of movement in terms of the growth of variable capital. It must enjoy freedom of movement in relation to the material elements of fixed capital – in other words, it needs to dominate the supply of labour power without any restrictions. Marx thinks that this can be achieved by an army of industrial reserve workers. His simple diagram of reproduction certainly does not recognize such an army and cannot make room for it, because the natural reproduction of the capitalist wage-earning proletariat cannot provide such an industrial reserve army. For such an army, workers are recruited from social reserves outside the rule of capital – and are only drawn into the form of wage-earning proletariat when necessary. Only the existence of non-capitalist groups and states can guarantee such a supply of surplus labour power for capitalist production.” (p. 82)
What we have brought up to this point from the beginning of the discussion is the scaffolding, the essence and the real fabric of all the objections and distortions that Rosa Luxemburg puts together under the banner of criticizing Marx’s theory of accumulation. We have briefly explained the incorrectness and unreality of some of these points earlier and in parallel with the citation of her objections and criticisms. But let us examine the main axes, goals and conclusions of these criticisms. Let us see what the main goal of putting forward these words and theories is. What is the real starting point of the criticisms, what specific result does the negations and affirmations seek to achieve, and finally, what will be the result of all this talk and talk for the working masses of the world.
The important or most important axis of Rosa Luxemburg’s criticism of Marx’s theory of accumulation is that she seems to have fallen into an abyss of contradiction in her analysis of the process of realizing surplus value!! It seems that Marx has based his anatomical foundation on the organization of capital and the exchanges between the two parts of the social capital of a country or the entire world capital on the assumption of the complete domination and the entire capitalist mode of production in different places. Something that is not possible is contradictory. With these assumptions, the process of organizing capital is at a dead end and the dynamics of realizing surplus values are in a state of disorder. Here or in this part of Rosa’s criticism and argument, there are several very important and decisive issues that are deeply debatable. It is very clear that Marx saw the lack of domination of capitalism over the widest part of the world of that day better than anyone else. It is an irrelevant idea to imagine that he did not include such an obvious and unambiguous reality, with all its present dimensions and all the details of its future process, in his calculations. But why, despite his complete mastery and mastery of this subject, he still takes the process of organizing capital and the exchanges between the two basic parts of capital in the sphere of the dominance of the capitalist mode of production as the basis for his dissection, is a very clear and transparent answer. The entire work containing Marx’s critique of bourgeois political economy, from the Grundrisse and the manuscripts to the four volumes of Capital, is dedicated to examining capital as a social relation, a historically determined mode of production, and the material basis of the existence of capitalist society. Here, capital, the relation of surplus value production, the ups and downs of the accumulation dynamic, and the process of surplus value realization in the sphere of the existence of this mode of production and the society that has developed from it are in question. It is clear that Marx’s point of departure must be this, and the process of surplus value realization, or its possibility and impossibility, must also be dissected on this basis. Rosa Luxemburg ignores this issue and in doing so effectively distances herself from the Marxian account of class struggle on the most fundamental and decisive issues concerning the understanding of capitalism and the struggle of the proletariat against it. These distinctions are indeed numerous, but we will focus our discussion on this paper only on the most important and decisive of them.
1.When Rosa Luxemburg, in her critical campaign against the Marxian anatomy of capital, directly and absolutely locks the fate of the dynamics of accumulation and the existence and nonexistence of the process of realization of the surplus values produced, to the foreign trade of the social capital of capitalist countries with non-capitalist societies, she practically establishes the cornerstone of one of the most misleading analyses of the imperialist conditions of capitalist production. It should be noted that Rosa does not speak of capitalism’s need to export goods and capital, of the decisive influence of the new areas of capital advance for capitalist societies, or of the blatant importance of the exploitation of the quasi-free labor of the new areas of accumulation in challenging the tendency of the rate of profit of capital. The subject of her criticism is none of these. On the contrary, she insists with excessive insistence on capitalism’s vital and inescapable need for the non-capitalist world. Here I should explain that Marx not only did not diminish the importance of the above components for capitalism, but he emphasized them more than anyone else. She says:
“The importation of English cotton, and also, to a lesser extent, woollen cloth, although it had been done on a small scale in the past, increased rapidly after 1833, when the monopoly of trade with China was transferred from the East India Company to private trade, and then from 1840 onwards it was done on a much larger scale, and other countries, especially the United States of America, similarly acquired a larger share in the trade with China. This influence of foreign manufactures on the native industries of China had a similar effect as it had already had in Asia Minor, Persia and India. In China, the spinners and weavers were severely injured by foreign competition, and public life was correspondingly shaken. (The Colonization of Persia and China) Marx, with astonishing alertness and insight, at the same time states that this expansion of the market, despite all its vital importance in relieving the present-day bottlenecks of Western capitalism and the rapid growth of accumulation in a society like England, will very soon lose its initial miraculous role.
“We have repeatedly drawn the attention of our readers to the incomparable growth of English industry since 1850. Yet in the midst of this astonishing economic prosperity, the obvious signs of an industrial crisis are easily visible. Despite California and Australia, and despite the unprecedented mass immigration, and without any particular incident, the moment will come when the expansion of the market will no longer be able to keep pace with the expansion of British industry, and this disproportion will certainly, as in the past, create a new crisis. Of course, when one of the great markets is suddenly lost, then the crisis will necessarily be hastened by this means” (ibid.). Marx’s prediction came true more quickly than was thought. English social capital experienced at least five major economic crises between 1876 and 1908. The first crisis gave way to a period of prosperity at the beginning of 1880, but the next wave arrived in 1882 and lasted until 1886. The third crisis began in 1891 and lasted until 1893. The years 1902 and 1903, and a little later, the period 1907 and 1908, also witnessed the invasion of crisis into the artery of the existence of capitalism in this country.
In France, the situation became even worse. French capitalism went through seven major economic crises in the same period. The crises of 1878 and 1879, 1882 to 1885, 1892 and 1893, and the four crises of 1894 and 1899 to 1902, 1907 to 1910, and finally 1912 to 1914, one after the other, squeezed the country’s social capital in their grip. (Angus Maddison. Stages of Economic Development)
Another important point should be considered. The imperialist conditions of capitalist production did not come into being suddenly and in an instant, within a few months or a year or two. A more or less long process of the forced growth of accumulation, concentration, self-expansion and globalization of capital created these conditions from its lap. The majority of theorists who have written in detail about the era of imperialism and have created and formulated the most misleading theories in their writings suggest that as long as Marx was alive, no trace or sign of the long process of ongoing capitalist transformations towards imperialist conditions was visible, and only a few years after Marx died, the strange giant of imperialism suddenly emerged from its historical hiding place!! A common feature of all these theorists is that under the name of describing the era of imperialism, they depict a system and relations that have lost most of the essential indicators and components of capitalism. It is a major obstacle to the growth and development of the capitalist mode of production in the world!! It is a medieval predatory and averse to the production of surplus value and the exploitation of labour! It is able to survive in the light of its survival from pre-capitalist forms of production and cannot withstand the expansion of wage labour relations in the world!! Rudolf Hilferding, Karl Kautsky, Bukharin, Lenin, Trotsky, in the early years of the twentieth century and later a large number of academic imperialists in the middle of this century and finally the ” Esteban Meszaros ” of today have all done the same thing to varying degrees and with varying intensity and weakness. The fact is that Rosa Luxemburg is among the effective leaders and vanguards of these theorizing. She consciously and persistently tries, under the banner of Marx’s criticism, to prove that the wider and longer existence of non-capitalist colonies, the continued existence of societies under the domination of feudal and pre-capitalist relations, is a vital condition for the realization of surplus values in capitalist countries. This is the familiar theory of “imperialism as an obstacle to the development of capitalism”!! “Monopoly capital against the capitalist development of colonies and semi-colonies!! Or the populist narrative of imperialism, which during the twentieth century became a weapon in the hands of militant leftist reformism and the bourgeoisie, the standard-bearer of people’s anti-imperialistic in the world, especially in the countries of the three continents of Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even a large part of Europe.
What Luxemburg formulates is the crude but very crude skeleton of Lenin’s populist theory of imperialism, the Maoist explanation of the imperialist conditions of capitalism, the doctrine of imperialism of academic “Marxists” like Suez, Amir Amin, Bettelheim, Baran and others. Luxemburg’s theory of accumulation is the mortar and pestle of the same misrepresentations that today the likes of “Meszaros” and his long line of academic colleagues are feeding the educated working class in various parts of the world. By theorizing the existence of feudal and pre-capitalist colonies and semi-colonies as a vital condition for the process of realizing the surplus values produced in capitalist societies, Rosa has, whether she likes it or not, adhered to the same theory that played the greatest role in the twentieth century in derailing the international working class from the anti-capitalist struggle.
There is no doubt that the historical course of capitalist development during the last two decades of the nineteenth and the first decades of the twentieth centuries was very rapid and gigantic, but the idea that Marx did not see the general trend of these events and did not follow their developing perspective is a kind of fantasy. The various volumes of Capital are a testament to the radical and conscious recognition of this process. In the first volume, Marx repeatedly emphasizes that the dynamics of accumulation growth are also the process of the concentration of capital. He explains that from the very beginning, in seeking to transform the ever-increasing share of the labour of wage slaves into surplus labour, capital increases its technical composition, meaning that it puts a larger volume of raw materials, semi-finished goods, and machinery to work by a smaller number of workers. The increase in technical composition, when accompanied by a change in the value values of the two parts of capital, leads to an increase in organic composition. This process involves the dispossession of individual small capitalists and the merging of their capitals into each other, and therefore the upward trend of the concentration of capital. The rise in the organic composition of social capital is accompanied by a tendency towards a falling rate of profit, the absolutization of this tendency and the emergence of crushing economic crises. Crises in turn intensify the process of concentration. The upward trend in concentration brings with it an increasing intensity of competition, and competition in turn makes the process of accumulation and concentration of capital more rapid and massive. A process that inevitably necessitates the formation of monopolies, the emergence of large banks, the emergence and gigantic dominance of finance capital, the need for a widespread export of capital and the territorial and economic division of the world. Marx saw all this and in the third volume of Capital he explains all that is the background to the emergence of the imperialist conditions of capitalist production.
A fundamental problem is that, while observing every minute detail of this process, he does not put forward any specific argument to depict and describe the future of these developments as the material foundations of an emerging strategy in the class struggle of the proletariat. He does not see the prospect of these events as a justification for building a Chinese wall between the past and the future of capitalism, he does not in any way allow this prospect to replace the anti-capitalist struggle of the working masses of the world with people’s anti-imperialistic. He does not extract from it the version of the alignment of the people and the anti-people, he does not tell the proletariat of the countries that the next chapter of their class struggle is an alliance with the “national bourgeoisie”!!, the “liberal landlords”!! the pan-Islamist reaction of the bourgeoisie and the “revolutionary democracy of Sun Yat-sen” against finance capital and the rush towards the “people’s democratic dictatorship”!! Marx does not imagine any of this. Instead of all this, he sees capital, considers all current economic developments as complications, side effects and immediate consequences of the process of development and self-expansion of capital. He focuses on the process of capitalist expansion throughout the world, fixes his gaze on the working class in its international stature and stature, monitors the anti-capitalist struggle of the vast masses of the world’s workers. All of his work is fundamentally different and even contradictory to what his successors have done and are doing under his name. Luxemburg sees the existence of non-capitalist societies as a vital condition for the survival of accumulation and the realization of surplus value in capitalist societies. She says:
“The matter is completely different in relation to the realization of surplus value. Here, non-capitalist foreign consumers are truly necessary. The immediate and vital condition for capital and its accumulation is the existence of non-capitalist buyers of surplus value, which is so decisive for the problem of capitalist accumulation” (ibid., p. 85).
She sees the combination of the two as so vital and inescapable that, firstly, it locks the existence of capitalism in countries to the existence of a large part of the non-capitalist world!! And it makes the preservation of pre-capitalist relations a condition for the survival of capitalism!! Secondly, and on this basis, he evaluates the economic exchanges between these two parts of the world not as a basis for the ever-increasing expansion of wage slavery relations and the globalization of the capitalist mode of production, but, on the contrary, as the mere export of commodities or maximum capital commodities, with the condition of the survival and dominance of previous forms of production.
Rosa rightly admits that the colonial capitalist governments of today are trying with all their might to destroy the natural economy of the colonized societies. He discusses this in detail, carefully reviewing the record of the British and French governments in relation to India and Algeria. He describes the story of the transformation of the ownership of the lands of the colonies from common and tribal to private with the aim of seizing these lands by European capitalists. He emphatically reveals the profiteering and criminal exploitation of the cheap mines and raw materials of the colonies by the aforementioned capitalists. He clarifies the role of this plunder as a vital need of European capital. At the same time, he emphasizes the urgent need of the British and French bourgeoisie, and Europe in general, to migrate the labor force of the occupied societies to the modern industrial areas of the West. He sees and explains all these points correctly and accurately, but he does not see this process as a basis for the development of wage labor relations and the growth of capitalism, but quite the opposite, as the source and creator of the survival of pre-capitalist forms of production. In his view, all current interactions are only the need to realize the surplus value produced in capitalist societies, and the process of this realization does not at all involve the expansion of the general bases of capital accumulation in non-capitalist societies and the capitalist development of these countries. From this point of view, and in terms of insisting on a specific type of capital’s role in the non-capitalist part of the world of his time and emphasizing the coexistence of this role with the pre-capitalism of this part of the world, Rosa is rightfully the leader and pioneer of the currents or parties that later put forward the worst form of populist analysis of the imperialist conditions of capitalist production. He is at the forefront of theorists who offer a completely non-Marxist and capitalist-oriented explanation of the dominance of capital in a society or a part of the world. The same explanation and interpretation that today the Meszaros and Semiramis, yesterday the Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran, and a little further on Lenin and Bolshevism were putting forward. That capital can be dominant in all respects in a country, but that country is not capitalist in any way!! Or, for example, “dependent capitalism”!! “comprador”, “peripheral”, “dominated” and such concoctions!! The capitalist mode of production has long since, especially from the 18th century onwards, created a market of the entire world with the widespread export of goods. In the heart of this market, it developed the general foundations of capital accumulation in different parts of the world, and in this regard, it replaced the special phase of primitive capital accumulation in new areas with the advance of capital exported by the capitalist countries of the day. The continuous, increasing and peaking export of capital accelerated and advanced the dynamics of capitalist development of feudal and pre-capitalist societies. In the context of this process, what was most important to capital was the huge and roaring flood of surplus values produced by the quasi-free labour force of the proletariat of societies developing capitalism or becoming capitalist. What was vital for Western capitalism in every respect was the expansion of these new areas of accumulation, the advance of mountains of free capital in these areas, and the valorisation of these capitals through the brutal exploitation of the vast working masses of the new countries, and not the pre-capitalist and feudal structure of these societies or their remaining non-capitalist. Rosa Luxemburg did not like this statement; she saw the capitalist mode of production not as a means of expanding the accumulation process but as requiring non-capitalist areas and countries. In this regard, she insists that the greater and greater dominance of capital in this or that part of the world does not mean providing the conditions for capitalist accumulation and development. Rosa does not even consider parts of contemporary British society to be capitalist. Let us pay attention to this part of her words.
“Marx, evidently influenced by the conditions of England, which had a high level of capitalist development, believed that the rural workers who constantly migrated to the cities belonged to the wage-earning proletariat, because they had previously been dominated by agricultural capital and were now subordinated to industrial capital. However, he ignores a question of extraordinary importance for the conditions of the European continent: the sources from which this rural and urban proletariat was recruited.” The continuous process by which the rural and urban middle strata, together with the extinction of the peasant economy and the small-scale artisan business, are transformed into the proletariat, in other words, the same process of uninterrupted transition from non-capitalist conditions to labour capitalism, which have been abandoned by non-capitalist – and not capitalist – modes of production in the course of their gradual collapse and disintegration. We see that Rosa assesses England at a high level of capitalist development, accepts the process of the extinction of villages, the decline of small-scale peasant production and craftsmanship in various regions of this country, their transformation into a migrant wage labour force, but at the same time does not see this whole process as equivalent to the capitalization of these sectors and regions of English society. She insists that they are still non-capitalist areas that, with the extinction of their natural economy, provide the labour force needed by the industrial regions, but they themselves are non-capitalist areas, although they are part of English society and are within the comprehensive domination of British capitalism.
Here, at the end of this part of the conversation, a serious question is posed to Rosa Luxemburg. The question of what she would have done with her theory of accumulation if she had lived and observed the conditions of the last 60 years of the capitalist world. At least for sixty years ago, capital as a relation of production of surplus value has been the dominant mode of production throughout the globe without any exceptions. There is no remote village of a few people anywhere in the world where the entire livelihood and wealth of its inhabitants have not been completely dissolved in the circle of valorisation and reproduction of capital. Rosa’s theoretical heirs, seeing this situation, see the solution in denying the dominance of capitalism over a part of the world, but she was not of this type of people and parties. A very important characteristic distinguished Rosa from her later contemporaries. She did not dress her theoretical errors and miscalculations in the guise of “Marxism” and being a disciple of Marx. On the contrary, she correctly and very honestly raised them under the banner of Marx’s criticism. This is a boldness and honesty of greatness that not many people have.
2. We have already seen that Rosa Luxemburg focuses the greatest part of her criticism of Marx on the relationship between the process of realization of surplus values on the one hand and the exchanges between the two basic parts of the capitalist economy or the dynamics of the organization of the social capital of countries. She believes that Marx considered this, that is, the transformation of the surplus values produced into new capital, possible in a capitalist society, while such a thing is not possible. First and before any discussion, it should be said that Marx did not write the second book of Capital to explain the possibility or impossibility of realizing surplus value within the sphere of capitalist domination. The surplus values produced complete their realization process in certain circumstances, and in certain circumstances this becomes impossible. Exchanges between parts 1 and 2 of social capital can also take place and can be impossible depending on different situations and conditions. In the chapter on the anatomy of these exchanges, Marx specifically emphasizes that: “In the structure of the vehicle of this mode of production, the equilibrium itself is an accident” (Volume II, p. 411). In this chapter, too, in the usual manner and with the aim of understanding and explaining a link in the global chain of valorisation and reproduction of capital, he puts forward assumptions that are merely allegorical and have educational applications. When, for example, he chooses the figures 6,000 and 2,000 to represent the constant capital of sections 1 and 2, when he takes the figures 1,000 and 500 as the variable capital of these sections, when he assumes a rate of surplus-value of exactly 100 percent for the capitals of both sections, and finally when he assumes a single organic composition for the different periods of accumulation and reversal, he knows very well that none of these data represent real items. Not only Marx, but everyone else is well aware that the capitalists of the world have not determined to necessarily adapt the amount of their capital advances to this diagram, let alone that the rate of surplus-value is not a selective phenomenon and is not chosen by the owners of capital. In a word, it is quite obvious that these figures cannot be adapted to what happens in the process of accumulation and reproduction of capital. All this is clear. Rosa Luxemburg’s problem is not that it is something else. His problem is that he has chosen the worst starting point for his understanding of capital, and from this wrong starting point he goes to the process of surplus value realization and Marx’s professional critique. Like all economists of the Austrian school, like the leaders of the Second International and in a manner contrary to Marx’s critique of bourgeois political economy, he spreads his entire dissection into the maze of the circuit of capital circulation. He explores the root of the events of this system here. For Marx, the process of capital concentration, the emergence of monopolies, the emergence of finance capital, the need to export goods, and the uncontrolled spread of capital export are all inherent to the capitalist mode of production and stem from the existential essence of this form of production. Rosa Luxemburg does not accept this and searches for the root of the problem in the form of circulation and whether or not the produced goods are sold!! Marx says:
“In capitalist production, money is not in the form of a means of circulation but in the form of money-capital. Money-capital creates the conditions under which the normal flow of reproduction, whether simple or extensive, takes place. But these conditions are equally the cause of abnormal flows and the possibility of crises, because in the structure of the vehicle of this mode of production, equilibrium itself is a matter of chance” (Volume II, translated by Eskandari, p. 411).
Outside this space, far from this departure point and in the ups and downs of the fate of the circumnavigation, Rosa says that such a thing is not practical. What has been produced must definitely find buyers outside the borders of capital’s domination and in this way be able to solve its problems. The first points to the threshold of production and even while he is busy explaining the process of circulation, he shows the structure of the mode of production and says that it is the origin and cause of all the imbalances there. He does not see the export of goods and the export of the largest volume of capital as the real cure for capital’s pain, but he refers to it as a double-edged sword. A sword that only a few steps further on intensifies the process of crises in a very effective and decisive way. The second summarizes the whole problem in the sale and non-sale of goods and finds the existence of pre-capitalist societies and the export of products to these regions as a way for capital to escape the risk of not realizing surplus values!! (We will discuss the essential difference between Marx’s theory of the crisis and Rosa Luxemburg’s account of this below.)
Marx says, “Whenever the problem is studied only in terms of the volume of value, we see that the material core of extensive reproduction arises in simple reproduction. The surplus value is the product of the labour of the working class of sector 1, which is directly spent on the production of the means of production and the creation of potential additional capital for 1. Therefore, the formation of money – potential additional capital with 1 (A1, A2, A3) through the successive sale of their surplus product, which is obtained without any capitalist monetary expenditure – here it is the simple monetary form of the surplus means of production produced in sector 1.” Rosa does not find this acceptable and insists that the capitalists of each sector must definitely sell their goods in non-capitalist colonies in order to realize the surplus values produced in the territory of their exploitation.
Marx sees the root of the crisis in the very fabric of capitalist production and does not consider the process of circulation and circulation of social capital of countries or world capital as the place to search for the root of the crisis. In this regard, in the second volume of Capital, he does not seek to find the source of the crisis and if he mentions this phenomenon, he merely refers to its consequent effects on the process of organizing capital. The area of exploration and explanation of the root of the crisis for Marx is the third volume. It is there that he points precisely to the basis of the existence of capital or the relation of surplus value production as the real source and centre of the boiling of the crisis and declares that the iron barrier in the way of the expansion of the dynamics of accumulation and valorisation of capital is the existence of capital itself. He shows that the process of surplus value production is at the same time and inevitably a process of a tendency towards a decline in the rate of profit and it is this tendency that, under certain conditions, forcibly gives birth to the crushing crises of capitalism. Marx explains that the development of the social productive force of labour manifests itself in two forms. First, in the volume and value of the productive forces that have already been accumulated, and second, in the relative smallness of the living labour power that is necessary to reproduce and valorise a given amount of capital in the process of extensive production. The social productivity of labour also manifests itself in relation to the labour power used in two ways. First, it shortens the necessary labour time and increases surplus labour. Second, it leads to a reduction in the number of workers to set a given amount of capital in motion. These developments put the rate of profit under pressure, because: first, the total volume of profit is the same as the total volume of surplus value, second, the rate of profit is the result of dividing surplus value by total capital, third, surplus value is tied on the one hand to its own rate and on the other hand to the labour power or variable capital that creates this rate.
In this regard, what happens is that the progress in productivity, to the extent that it reduces the paid component of labour, increases the amount and rate of surplus value, but at the same time reduces the volume of labour force exploited or the sole source of surplus value production. He says, for example, that two workers working 12 hours a day cannot produce the same volume of surplus value as 24 workers working 2 hours a day. Precisely for this reason, compensating for the reduction in the number of workers by raising the degree of exploitation collides with an impassable boundary. What helped to prevent the fall of the rate of profit cannot in any way overcome it.
After these explanations, Marx states: “The contradiction lies here that the capitalist mode of production involves a tendency towards the expansion of productive forces, regardless of the value and surplus value hidden in it, and regardless of the specific social relations within which this expansion takes place.” While on the other hand, the purpose of this production method is to maintain the existing value-capital and to make it fertile at the highest level or to continuously increase this value. Its special feature is based on the fact that it uses the existing capital-value as a means to fertilize this value as much as possible. The methods by which the capitalist mode of production achieves this goal include the reduction of the rate of profit, the depreciation of existing capital, and the advancement of the productive forces of labour at the expense of the productive forces that have already been produced. The cyclical straw value of the existing capital, which is one of the characteristics of this production method, prevents the decline of the interest rate, accelerates the accumulation of value-capital through the formation of new capital, in total, it creates certain conditions in which the cyclical process is disturbed and is accompanied by sudden stagnations and crises in the production process” (Volume III, translated by Eskandari, pages 265 and 266).
We see that Marx traces the beginning of every capitalist crisis, or even of every disturbance in the process of the organization of capital, directly to the fundamentally contradictory existence of this mode of production. It is the insoluble contradiction between the tendency of capital to an unlimited increase in the social productivity of labour on the one hand and the inevitable effect of this process on the rise of the organic composition of capital and the fall of the rate of profit on the other, which is the source of crises. Every disturbance in the process of circulation and circulation of capital originates from here, and the reverse does not happen in any way.
“The main obstacle to capitalist production is capital itself. Capital and its self-fertilization are seen as the starting point, the end, the motive and the goal of production. Production is only production for capital. The means of production are not simple instruments at the service of the society of producers. The preservation and fertilization of value-capital, which is based on the expropriation and impoverishment of the great masses of producers, can only move within certain limits. These limits are constantly in conflict with the methods of production which capital must inevitably employ to achieve its purpose. For these methods are driven towards the unlimited increase of production, towards production as an ultimate end and towards the unconditional expansion of the socially productive forces of labour. The means, the unconditional expansion of the socially productive forces of labour, are constantly at odds with the limited goal of the fertilization of existing capital. Therefore, if the capitalist mode of production is a historical means for the growth of material productive force and the creation of a world market commensurate with it, at the same time it also carries the dynamic contradiction between this historical task and the specific social relations of production related to it. (Volume III, p. 266, quoted with a summary) The purpose of quoting the above is not to deal with Marx’s theory of the capitalist crisis. This work has been done elsewhere. The purpose of the above brief references is only to state one thing. That in order to understand capitalism and all the issues related to it, including the phenomenon of crisis, Marx based his work on the radical anatomy of capital as a mode of production, the relation of production of surplus value, the social relation underlying the existence of capitalist society. He also explored the structure of capitalist existence and the entire issues of the class struggle of the proletariat against capitalism from this perspective.
By distancing herself from the radical core of Marx’s critique of bourgeois political economy, Rosa Luxemburg, whether she likes it or not, opens the way for a wrong view of the various spheres of the class struggle of the working masses. Her account of capitalism deprives her of the opportunity to radically criticize the pacifist reformism of the Second International and the militant reformism of Lenin and reduces her criticisms of these approaches to the level of anti-chauvinist, anti-opportunist, and pro-democracy criticism. When she explores the fundamental problem of capitalism in the cycle of commodity circulation and the conflict between this cycle and the dynamics of surplus value realization, she opens the way for herself to accept a form of capitalism under the false banner of “socialism” or “communism”!! as a type of economic and social relations that is supposedly immune to the risk of crises and internal turmoil!! This was one of the major Achilles’ heels of Bolshevism, Leninism, the German Social Democratic Party, or the entire social democracy of the Second International.
The hot market of the theory of party formation and the sanctity of party formation, in both of these approaches, with all the obvious formal differences and distinctions between them, also has homogeneity and inbreeding with the above-mentioned alternative idea for capitalist society. The common party formation of the left forces in the twentieth century was the invention and character of social democracy following the decline of the traditions of the First International, in the years after Marx’s death. The real foundation of the theory of party formation of both tendencies (peaceful parliamentary social democracy and Leninist overthrown social democracy) is the belief in the importance and urgency of the seizure of political power by an organization above the working masses. An organization that will take on the task of planning and ensuring the rule and survival of capitalism in another form, under the name and code of “socialism” or “communism”.
Let’s put the issue a little clearer. When capitalism is described with components such as anarchy of production, disorders within the circulation cycle and individual ownership of capital or the formal and legal appearance of capital ownership!! The planning of the economy, politics and the legal, cultural, civil, social structure of this same capitalism, provided that the aforementioned components are removed or changed, acquires the false name, title and credibility of “socialism” or even “communism”!! When wage labour or the relationship of buying and selling labour power is not considered an identity indicator of capitalist production, the elimination of wage labour as the cornerstone of socialism, communism and the future society after capitalism also easily gives up its relevance! One step further, when a form of capitalism dresses up as socialism, then the issue of nationwide organization and councils of the broad masses of the working class and their organized, conscious anti-capitalist movement to eliminate wage slavery and as the only force capable of carrying out this great historical mission is also removed from the agenda. This is where the subjectivity of the party’s existence occupies the corners of the minds of the founders of these theories and ideas. All these issues are interconnected and related like links in a chain. The narrative of capitalism, the narrative of socialism, the understanding of the social existence of the working class and the labour movement, the narrative of capitalist private property, the narrative of the state and political power, and all the small and large matters of the class struggle of the proletariat form different parts of a single system.
Marx defined capitalism with the relationship of buying and selling labour power, the relationship of producing surplus value, the relationship of separating the worker from labour and the proceeds of his labour, the relationship of capitalizing the product of labour and exploiting the worker, the relationship of transforming the dead labour of the worker into a godlike power dominating him and his class. In this narrative, socialism must naturally include the elimination of all these components and their implications from the sphere of human life, the elimination of labour power as a commodity, the elimination of wage slavery, the complete elimination of the worker’s separation from labour and the capitalization of the product of his labour, the elimination of the state and classes, and in a word, the emergence of a society that testifies to the liberation of humanity from every constraint, including the constraint of labour. In Marx’s view, a movement that has the power to eliminate capitalism and establish socialism with such a narrative cannot be a movement dependent on the party above it and a handful of party elites. Such a thing is absolutely impossible. The establishment of socialism, the abolition of wage labour, inevitably depends on the fielding of a deeply anti-capitalist, all-embracing Soviet movement, in which the whole or at least the largest part of the working masses play the role of living, conscious, creative, capable and effective cells within it and in determining all the policies, orientations and praxis of their struggle. A movement that aligns the united, organized and conscious power of the broad masses of the working class against the power of capital and the bourgeoisie, Marx already legitimizes and validates this narrative of capitalism and socialism and the workers’ movement with another radical materialist narrative of the social position and existence of the proletariat. He saw the proletariat, not the bourgeoisie, as the generative source of communism, the origin of communist consciousness and as having the capacity for growth, maturity and class power as a powerful communist movement. All these beliefs are consistent, inbred, and homogeneous in Marx’s way of understanding history, society, class struggle, and the role of the proletariat. Social democracy in both its approaches, the compromise parliamentary reformism of the German Social Democratic Party and Karl Kautzkys type, or the left-wing populist, overthrown reformism of Leninist and Bolsheviks, differ in all the above narratives from Marx and the movement for the abolition of wage labour of the proletariat. In the perspective of both approaches, capitalism is described with the indicators of competition, chaos of production, and individual ownership of capital. Their socialism is capitalism without these components, or wage slavery under state ownership, domination, and control. According to both currents, socialist consciousness is the lamp of knowledge that bourgeois scholars light and illuminate the path to the liberation of the working masses. In the narrative of both approaches, the socialist movement is a movement in which the torch of the party’s existence shines on its path. Among them, one sees parliamentarism as the weapon of victory, and the other sees the violent overthrow of the state machine of the day.
Despite her criticisms of each of these approaches, Rosa Luxemburg is aligned with them on most of the fundamental issues of the class struggle. These criticisms have taken on a different place in the calculations of many leftist circles than their actual substance and dimensions. The fact is that Luxemburg’s criticism of Lenin’s twisted versions and Bolshevism, in various periods, did not go beyond the scope of a handful of reformist criticisms devoid of Marxian and anti-wage labour. Just as the scope of her criticism of the leaders of the German Social Democratic Party, the social democracy of Kautsky and Co. remained limited to the level of protest against the chauvinism and criminal opportunism of the aforementioned parties or groups. Some academic communists have seen Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of accumulation and her criticism of Marx as a result of her disregard for Marx’s explanations and, at the same time, as evidence of her influence on the crisis theory of the leaders of the Second International. There is no doubt that Rosa has not paid attention to the Marxian anatomy of capital and that she was influenced by Kautsky and his ilk in her critique, but the problems go far beyond this. The discussion is about two different and conflicting approaches to the class struggle of the proletariat. If this group of communists reduces the whole problem to the level of some incorrect perceptions and insignificant impressions, it is only because they themselves do not view the matter from the Marxist perspective of class struggle.
Nasser Paydar November 2015