Standing the Test of Time. Reform or Revolution

Abstract

Rosa Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution was the first clear statement warning of the danger of reformism to the socialist movement. Its arguments regarding such things as the function of credit, capitalist crisis and imperialism retain great contemporary relevance. Luxemburg rightly predicted that reformists were not proposing to reach the goal of socialism more slowly than revolutionaries, but were on the road to a different goal. This has been borne out by subsequent developments. Although there had been no previous analysis of reformism, Reform or Revolution is frequently overlooked owing to a focus on Lenin's writings. However, both thinkers’ works on this subject are complementary to each other. Nonetheless, there was a difference between the two over what practical conclusions to draw. Lenin established the Bolshevik Party to separate the revolutionary forces in Russia from the reformist Mensheviks. For all her opposition to reformism within the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), Luxemburg insisted that a separate revolutionary party should not be organized in Germany. In the two great tests of the time—the outbreak of World War I and the post-war revolutions—Lenin was proved right. Luxemburg paid for her mistake with her life. The situation was complex, however. Lenin never generalized from the establishment of the Bolsheviks and until 1914 accepted the leading role of the increasingly reformist SPD within the international Marxist movement. Conversely, Luxemburg was critical of the SPD's reformism but never established an independent revolutionary party to challenge for leadership of the German working class. Despite clarity over the false arguments of reformism, part of the problem that both socialist leaders faced was the lack of a firm understanding of the depth of reformism within the working class. However, this cannot overshadow the greatness of Reform or Revolution that so accurately predicted and explained the bankruptcy of social democracy and parliamentary reformism today.