Draft leaflet for SWP Rosa Luxemburg meetings

REFORM AND REVOLUTION. "For Social Democracy", wrote Rosa Luxemburg, meaning, in the language of the day, "for working-class socialism", "there exists an indissoluble tie between social reforms and revolution. The struggle for reforms is its means; the social revolution, its goal... The practical daily struggle for reforms, for the amelioration of the condition of the workers within the framework of the existing social order, and for democratic institutions, offers Social Democracy the only means of engaging in the proletarian class struggle and working in the direction of the final goal..."The revolutionary who believes that concerns for votes and elections and "democratic institutions", or defence of limited working-class betterment on issues like the welfare state or trade-union rights, is "reformist", is a poor and ineffective revolutionary. Workers' Liberty is working with the SWP and others to get joint working-class socialist slates to challenge New Labour in the June Euro-elections. We work with other socialists - and urge the SWP to join - in the Welfare State Network and the United Campaign for Trade Union Rights.

INTERNATIONALISM. In World War 1 Rosa Luxemburg wrote: "Before capitalism could develop, it sought to create for itself a territory sharply defined by national limitations... The national programme could play a historic role... so long as it represented the ideological expression of a growing bourgeoisie lusting for power... Today the nation is but a cloak that covers imperialistic desires, a battle cry for imperialistic rivalries..." Lenin argued that Luxemburg exaggerated in entirely dismissing the possibility of national-independence wars by small nations in Europe.

Ireland in 1919-21 would prove him right. But as regards the big nations of Europe, there was no difference between the revolutionary Marxists in assessing how reactionary the programme of nationalism had become.The slogans of "Get Britain out of Europe", or "Keep Britain out of the single currency", shamefully used by would-be Marxists ever sincethe early 1970s, should be buried. To the emerging integrated capitalist Europe, our answer should be workers' unity across Europe, levelling-up of workers' conditions across Europe, a democratic united Europe, and towards a socialist united Europe.

THE REVOLUTIONARY PARTY. Against the crude Stalinist myth that Rosa Luxemburg had no understanding of the need for a revolutionary party, Leon Trotsky wrote: "Rosa... never confined herself to the mere theory of spontaneity... Rosa Luxemburg exerted herself to educate the revolutionary wing of the proletariat in advance and to bring it together organisationally as far as possible. In Poland, she built up a very rigid independent organisation. The most that can be said is that in her historical-philosophical evaluation of the labour movement, the preparatory selection of the vanguard, in comparison with the mass actions that were to be expected, fell too short with Rosa..."In her polemics against the German Social Democratic majority, Luxemburg never questioned the necessity of a party. What she questioned was the leaders' obsession with the administrative, organisational side of the party question. "Instead of concerning itself with the technical mechanism of the mass movement, it is the duty of Social Democracy to undertake the political leadership... To give the slogan, to determine the direction... that is the important problem of the party leadership".Thus she placed great stress on theoretical education and discussion. "No coarser insult, no baser defamation, can be thrown against the workers than the remark, 'Theoretical controversies are only for intellectuals'. Lassalle once said, 'Only when science and the workers, these opposed poles of society, become one, will they crush in their arms of steel all obstacles'. The entire strength of the modern labour movement rests on theoretical knowledge".And again: "Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently".After decades of existing mostly as a range of single-faction "parties", each with its slogans for the day calculated by the central leadership according to what phrases they think will best attract recruits and the minimum of serious discussion about perspectives for the workers' movement as a whole, the left now shows some signs of realigning. We need maximum unity in action, and public and honest debate on our differences.