V I Lenin

Rosa Luxemburg's Unsuccessful Addition to Marx's Theory


Written:  March-April 1913
First Published:  1933
Source: Lенинский Сборник XXII, Партийное Издательство, Mосква, 1933, c347-8. (from the Leninskii Sbornik, [Lenin Miscellany], Party Publishing House, Moscow, 1933, pp347-8)
Translated:  Steve Palmer
Transcription/Markup: Steve Palmer
Proofread: Steve Palmer
Public Domain: Marxist Internet Archive 2010. This work is completely free.
Copyleft: Creative Commons (Attribute & Share-alike) Marxist Internet Archive 2010.


Lenin read Rosa Luxemburg's Accumulation of Capital in 1913, critically annotating it ('Marginal Notes on Rosa Luxemburg's book Accumulation of Capital'). In March 1913 he wrote to the publishers of the Russian Journal Sotsialdemokrat in Paris: 'I have just read Rosa's new book ... She has got into a shocking muddle. She has distorted Marx. I'm very glad that Pannekoek, Eckstein and Otto Bauer have all condemned her book with one accord and used the same arguments which I already used in Number 4 of Prosveshchenie.' (Lenin, Works, Volume 35, pp 93-4. According to a footnote, Lenin drew up a plan of the article and this document is apparently the outline of that article.


(S.322)*

Roughly:

I. 14 years ago. Narodniks versus marxists.
        Legal marxists and social-democrats

II. Distortion by R. Luxemburg.

III. State of theoretical problems.

IV. Rosa Luxemburg's ["additions"] Criticism. Anti-Criticism.  

V.  Rosa Luxemburg's "addition". Failure

V. bis. German Social-Democrat Press and the "Trouble-maker".

VI. Dialectics and Eclectics

VII.Imperialism and realization  Surplus-value (Rothstein etc.)


* On p.322 [p.351 Eng. ed.] R Luxemburg writes of the necessity to supplement ['correct' Eng. Ed.] (zu ergänzen) Marx. (Soviet editor.)