![]() Cover of the first edition | |
Author | Rosa Luxemburg |
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Original title | Die Russische Revolution |
Translator | Bertram Wolfe (English edition published 1940 by Workers Age Publishers, New York) |
Language | German |
Genre | Political philosophy |
Publisher | Paul Levi |
Publication date | 1922 |
Publication place | German Empire |
Media type |
The Russian Revolution (German : Die Russische Revolution) is a pamphlet written in 1918 by Polish-German Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg. It was posthumously published in 1922 by fellow Spartacist Paul Levi. [1]
Luxemburg discusses the 1917 February and October revolutions in Russia. Her three major criticisms of the policies implemented by the Bolshevik Party were its korenizatsiya policy of self-determination for ethnic minorities, its distribution of land to individual peasant farmers instead of immediate collectivization, and its anti-democratic dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly. [2] In general, Luxemburg was critical of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin's centralization of power and creation of a single party state, [3] and the suppression of civil liberties such as freedom of the press, association and assembly. [4] However she had been in prison at the time of writing the pamphlet and, according to her friend Clara Zetkin was therefore without access to all relevant information and changed her opinion later. The pamphlet also states that “The Party of Lenin was the only one which grasped the mandate and duty of a truly revolutionary party…” [2]
Sections of the work include: