Spartacus - Junius

          Theoretically The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, portray wonderful ideals without class structured struggles as well as briefly featuring the ideals of how the capitalist society would in time be replaced by Socialism, and then ultimately to Communism. 

          

          During the dilapidated time periods between late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, arose Rosa Luxemburg who had a profound role in German left wing politics.  Considered a Marxist theorist, philosopher, as well as an economist, she had successively been a member of Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).  Much of the martyrdom-like credit goes to Rosa Luxemburg along with others including Karl Liebknecht who founded what became the Spartacus League – they printed illegal anti-war pamphlets signing their documents “Spartacus” cleverly after the Thracian gladiator who liberated the slaves in opposition to the Romans.  Even during imprisonment for over two years during the war for her attempt to lead Germany’s proletariats to an anti-war general strike, it’s stated that her friends had helped smuggle and illegally publish her articles.  It is said that Rosa Luxemburg’s pseudonym was “Junius” after the Roman Republic founder Lucius Junius Brutus; hence, The Junius Pamphlet.

I found it really difficult to just pick and choose a section of the pamphlet.  In the first chapter, you can almost hear the frustration, the imploring in her voice asking why and what happened.  Their goals were within their grasps, their voices heard, the revolution of the working class, proletariats rising for control and then, the disillusioned and thwarted goal.

"And what did we in Germany experience when the great historical test came? The most precipitous fall, the most violent collapse. Nowhere has the organization of the proletariat been yoked so completely to the service of imperialism. Nowhere is the state of siege borne so docilely.^[6] Nowhere is the press so hobbled, public opinion so stifled, the economic and political class struggle of the working class so totally surrendered as in Germany."

          Perhaps in a sense of atonement she reiterated the working class’s need as a “supreme duty” to reflect, self-criticize “for its weaknesses are only confusion.” 

“But German Social Democracy was not merely the strongest vanguard troop, it was the thinking head of the International. For this reason, we must begin the analysis, the self-examination process, with its fall. It has the duty to begin the salvation of international socialism, that means unsparing criticism of itself. None of the other parties, none of the other classes of bourgeois society, may look clearly and openly into the mirror of their own errors, their own weaknesses, for the mirror reflects their historical limitations and the historical doom that awaits them. The working class can boldly look truth straight in the face, even the bitterest self-renunciation, for its weaknesses are only confusion. The strict law of history gives back its power, stands guarantee for its final victory.Unsparing self-criticism is not merely an essential for its existence but the working class’s supreme duty. On our ship we have the most valuable treasures of mankind, and the proletariat is their ordained guardian! And while bourgeois society, shamed and dishonored by the bloody orgy, rushes headlong toward its doom, the international proletariat must and will gather up the golden treasure that, in a moment of weakness and confusion in the chaos of the world war, it has allowed to sink to the ground.”

          Why did they give it up all almost as if they just gave up? Ah, ok I’m done with this, I’m outta here! kind of attitude one might even venture saying.  This topic came up during the lecture that perhaps they really in actuality wanted someone to tell them what to do or since they’ve voiced their concerns for better working environment and wages, perhaps they were satisfied that their concerns may have been heeded or at least perhaps they’ve gotten their satisfaction of seeing the havoc and damages that they can cause – like a giant rolling its feet causing destruction threatening it can do worse.

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg also must have been a great orator; she pursuades, she voices, and lets you hear her emotions.  The imagery she portrays about criminals of the world war, the conclusion of the world war, its destruction and what the proletariats now need to do, in her own Marxist-Socialist-Communist ideals of course, is clearly evident in her later work What Does the Spartacus League Want?

“The class rule of the bourgeoisie is the real criminal responsible for the World War, in Germany as in France, in Russia as in England, in Europe as in America. The capitalists of all nations are the real instigators of the mass murder. International capital is the insatiable god Baal, into whose bloody maw millions upon millions of steaming human sacrifices are thrown.

The World War confronts society with the choice: either continuation of capitalism, new wars, and imminent decline into chaos and anarchy, or abolition of capitalist exploitation.

With the conclusion of world war, the class rule of the bourgeoisie has forfeited its right to existence. It is no longer capable of leading society out of the terrible economic collapse which the imperialist orgy has left in its wake.

Means of production have been destroyed on a monstrous scale. Millions of able workers, the finest and strongest sons of the working class, slaughtered. Awaiting the survivors’ return stands the leering misery of unemployment. Famine and disease threaten to sap the strength of the people at its root. The financial bankruptcy of the state, due to the monstrous burdens of the war debt, is inevitable.

Out of all this bloody confusion, this yawning abyss, there is no help, no escape, no rescue other than socialism. Only the revolution of the world proletariat can bring order into this chaos, can bring work and bread for all, can end the reciprocal slaughter of the peoples, can restore peace, freedom, true culture to this martyred humanity. Down with the wage system! That is the slogan of the hour! Instead of wage labor and class rule there must be collective labor. The means of production must cease to be the monopoly of a single class; they must become the common property of all. No more exploiters and exploited! Planned production and distribution of the product in the common interest. Abolition not only of the contemporary mode of production, mere exploitation and robbery, but equally of contemporary commerce, mere fraud.”

          Oh how nice!  No one worker labors more or less than another.  Equal work, equal pay, collective labor for the good of all.  Boring and unchallenging however, I say it may work in theory, but we know it becomes dictatorship-like eventually in practice.  What’s your opinion?