Rosa Luxemburg’s Concept of Spontaneity and Creativity in Proletarian Mass Movements—Theory and Practice

ABSTRACT

In her 1906 booklet, “The Mass Strike, the Political Party, and the Trade Unions,” Rosa Luxemburg described her basic concept of democracy and emphasized the importance of spontaneity in proletarian mass movements. According to Luxemburg, socialist party leaders should accept and support the spontaneity of the workers, as it would result in an increase in readiness for action and creativity on the part of the masses; it would also strengthen labor organizations. The strong connection between spontaneity and creativity in the proletarian mass movements is also found in other of Luxemburg’s works, such as “The Crisis of Social Democracy” (1915), her unfinished manuscript on “The Russian Revolution” (September/October 1918) and the “Spartacus Program” (December 1918). Analyzing the anti-war mass movements in Germany from 1916 until 1918, we can see that Luxemburg’s concept of the close connection between spontaneity and creativity became reality, especially during Germany’s successful November Revolution in 1918.

KEYWORDS:

• Rosa Luxemburg
• basic concept of democracy
• spontaneity and creativity
• proletarian mass movements
• German Revolution 1918

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful for the careful copyediting of the editors of International Critical Thought. This article is published for commemorating the 100th anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg’s death.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on Contributor

Ottokar Luban, born in 1937, studied history, political sciences, educational sciences, psychology, special education of handicapped students at the Pedagogical College and the Free University in Berlin (West), and became a teacher in Berlin. After retirement he joined the International Rosa Luxemburg Society (http://www.internationale-rosa-luxemburg-gesellschaft.de) and is working as its voluntary secretary since 1999. His publications on Rosa Luxemburg include Spartacus Group and The Young Communist Party of Germany. The catalogue of his German and English publications can be found via http://www.rosa-luxemburg-forschung.de.

Notes

1 This is a translation by the author. The original German text is: “Für sie war Fortschritt der Menschheit nur durch demokratische Entfaltung denkbar, nicht durch Gängelung, sondern durch Mitwirkung der Massen, an deren spontane Kraft und schöpferischen Geist sie glaubte.”

2 For the following sections see pp. 80–91 for mass strikes and pp. 112–117 for the November Revolution of 1918 in Morgan (1975). See pp. 65–160 in Pelz (1987) and pp. 51–66 in Luban (2008), also pp.45–49 in Luban (2017a) on the development of the Spartacus Group. See pp. 127–171 in Luban (2008) and pp. 59–71 in Luban (2017b) for the mass strikes and the German November Revolution of 1918.

3 See the important research results in Kruse (1994).