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Rosa Luxemburg and the National Problem:
The Similarity of Luxemburg’s Theory
to “Austrian Marxism”
Writen by Hiroyoshi Hayashi (1993)
Translated by Roy West
6. Centralized Power and Regional Autonomy
For Luxemburg, the question of the relationship between centralized power
and regional autonomy is a central concern. This is because this was deeply
connected to the question of the possibility or realization of the “national
cultural autonomy” of Poland. She developed her view of this relationship
by criticizing Kautsky.
The characteristic of Kautsky’s theory was the distinction between the
centralization of “administration” and the centralization of the “legislative
process.” As a Marxist, he is a defender of centralization, but what he
defended was the centralization of “legislation,” not the “centralization
of administration”. This is because he saw the latter as the deed of feudalistic
absolutism or counter-revolution, and had no relation to democracy. On
the other hand, the centralization of legislation is different from that
of administration, and is a democratic form. Along with the unification
of laws, there arises “a striving for decentralization of administration
of the provinces and communes.” Therefore, Kautsky recognizes the centralization
of legislative rights, but refuses that for local autonomy. To put it more
schematically: Kautsky opposes to central and regional government, as well
as regional assembles, while on the other hand he defends centralized legislature
and regional government autonomy (without legislative power). The legislative
power and parliament would be centralized, while the administrative power
would be regional. Kautsky felt that this would be a state system that
would be able to secure democratic centralized rights, while at the same
time responding to the particularities of each region. Of course, this
is a classic example of a dogmatic and formulaic theory.
Luxemburg was not principally opposed to Kautsky’s centralization, and
in fact highly praises his theory:
Kautsky’s arguments are in their essence extremely valuable as an indication
concerning the general tendency in Social Democratic policy, concerning
its basic standpoint towards centralism and big-power policy on the on
hand and particularistic tendencies on the other. (p. 250)
Despite this, she criticized Kautsky because his view denied or limited
the legislative rights of regional governments.
Luxemburg defended the concept that regional government was not only a
question of finances, but also had the task of solving certain social problems
in the local areas.
On the other hand, autonomy itself puts up barriers to legislative centralization,
because without certain legislative competences, even narrowly outlined
and purely local, no self-government is possible. The power of issuing
within a certain sphere, on its own initiative, laws binding for the population,
and not merely supervising the execution of laws issued by the central
legislative body, constitutes precisely the soul and core of self-government
in the modern democratic sense?it forms the basic function of municipal
and communal councils as well as of provincial diets or departmental councils.
(p. 248)
In this way, Luxemburg one-dimensionally criticized Kautsky’s theory for
excluding the legislative rights of local assemblies:
This can be done, in our opinion, not by a formulistic approach, whereby
the legislative and the administrative powers are separated, but by separating
some spheres of social life?namely those which constitute the core of a
capitalist economy and of a bourgeois state?from the sphere of local interests.
(p. 249)
Thus, Luxemburg thinks that the “local interests” can be widened, and
hidden beneath this is the aim for “national self-government” that overcomes
the problem of local self-government. In other words, she thinks that,
“precisely from the same foundations from which, in all capitalistic states,
grows local self-government, there also grows in certain conditions national
autonomy.” (p. 250)
As we have seen, the requirements of the capitalist system lead with historic
necessity in all modern states to the development of local self-government
through the participation of the people in carrying out sociopolitical
functions on all levels, from the commune to the district and province.
Where, however, inside a modern state there exist distinct nationality
districts constituting at the same time territories with certain economic
and social distinctions, the same requirements of the bourgeois economy
make self-government on the highest, country-wide level, indispensable.
On this level, local self-government is also transformed, as a result of
a new factor, national-cultural distinctness, into a special type of democratic
institution applicable only in quite specific conditions. (p. 256)
To anticipate our argument a bit, this passage shows the characteristic
of Luxemburg’s opinion, as well as exposes her theoretical confusion.
On the one hand, she argues for “economic and social autonomy” for Poland,
but she completely denies Polish “economic independence,” and emphasizes
how economically dependent Poland is upon Russia. She really wants to speak
of “national and cultural autonomy,” not “economic autonomy,” but in
order to speak of the former she is obliged to bring up the question of
economic autonomy, and in this way she exposes the absence of any real
foundation for her own theory.
We should also pay attention to her statement about “domestic self-government
as the highest level of self-government.” She positions this from “bourgeois
economic demands.” Of course, here “domestic self-government” is used
in almost the same sense as “national autonomy.” In other words, she
views “national self-government” as the “highest” self-government,
but emphasizes that this is a demand of bourgeois rule, or completely indemnified
from this. This not only opens the way for petty bourgeois nationalism,
but also spreads fantasies towards bourgeois democracy. Herein lies the
Luxemburg’s thorough opportunism.
The reason that Luxemburg discusses “centralization and local self-government”
at length, is precisely to theoretically position the demand for Polish
“national self-government.” Here we will look concretely at how she posits
this.
Luxemburg emphasizes self-government in Poland?she uses such terms as regional
self-government and domestic self-government?but this was definitely not
the demand for national self-determination (i.e. the formation of a national
state) in Poland. Instead, this was the call for autonomy or national self-government
within the boundaries of a Russian republic. On this point, Luxemburg opposed
the nationalism of Poland, on the one hand, while secretly introducing
it on the other hand (in the same manner as all of the theorists of “cultural
and national autonomy”!). Luxemburg’s rational for doing this is strange,
but before looking at this, let’s look at how she connected the rule of
the bourgeoisie in Poland with national self-government.
According to Luxemburg, “national autonomy of the Kingdom of Poland”
is primarily a demand of the Polish bourgeoisie, which seeks to “strengthen
its class rule and to develop its institutions in order to exploit and
oppress with no restrictions whatsoever,” (p. 258), but on the other hand
this is also necessary for as the “most mature political form of bourgeois
rule.” Of course, when compared to the totality of the Russian state,
“national autonomy” has a narrow range, but within this it is an indispensable
tool of bourgeois class rule as one part of the “modern state-political
parliamentary institutions.” Luxemburg says:
Political liberty and self-government will eventually give the Polish bourgeoisie
the possibility of utilizing a number of presently neglected social functions?schools,
religious worship, and the entire cultural-spiritual life of the country?for
its own class interests. By manning all offices of the administration,
judiciary, and politics, the bourgeoisie will be able to assimilate genuinely
these natural organs of class rule with the spirit and home needs of bourgeois
society, and so turn them into flexible, accurate, and subtle tools of
the Polish ruling classes. Natural autonomy, as a part of all-state political
freedom, is, in a word, the most mature political form of bourgeois rule
in Poland. (p. 258)
When this passage is examined, it reveals a strange content. That is, she
says that political liberty will allow the Polish bourgeoisie to connect
the state power as a tool of class rule to the “spirit” of bourgeois
society, but it is incomprehensible why the word “spirit” appears here.
We can grasp the idea that the state apparatus as a tool of old class rule,
would be transformed into a tool of the bourgeoisie under their class rule,
but it is extremely difficult to rationally understand what she means by
saying that under bourgeois rule the state apparatus would be “assimilated
with the spirit” of this rule. But this is certainly not a random or simple
“mistake”, as we shall see later. Putting this aside, however, the conclusions
that Luxemburg draws from this assumption in terms of the program and policy
of the workers are absurd, and only further expose the limitations of her
theory:
However, precisely for this reason, autonomy is an indispensable class
need of the Polish proletariat. The riper the bourgeois institutions grow,
the deeper they penetrate the social functions, the more ground they cover
within the variegated intellectual and aesthetic sphere, the broader grows
the battlefield and the bigger the number of firing lines wherefrom the
proletariat conducts the class struggle. The more unrestrictedly and efficiently
the development of bourgeois society proceeds, the more courageously and
surely advances the consciousness, political maturity, and unification
of the proletariat as a class.
The Polish proletariat needs for its class struggle all the components
of which a spiritual culture is made; primarily, its interests, essentially
based on the solidarity of nations and striving towards it, require the
elimination of national oppression, and guarantees against such oppression
worked out in the course of social development. Moreover, a normal, broad,
and unrestricted cultural life of the country is just as indispensable
for the development of the proletariat’s class struggle as for the existence
of bourgeois society itself.
National autonomy has the same aims as are contained in the political program
of the Polish proletariat: the overthrow of absolutism and the achievement
of political freedom in the country at large; this is but a part of the
program resulting both from the progressive trends of capitalist development
and from the class interests of the proletariat. (p. 259)
Here we have the opportunistic idea that bourgeois development will be
in the workers own class interests. Luxemburg abstracts “spiritual and
cultural life” from bourgeois development, and by treating this one-dimensionally
spreads the idea that this is in the interests of the workers, or the Polish
nation as a whole. Her difference from other nationalists is that that
this is not expressed in naked terms, and is instead hidden behind ambiguous
terms such as “national autonomy.” But if this were expressed clearly
there would be no difference from other nationalists. It is true that she
does not introduce national self-determination, but in a concealed form
she essentially proposes the same thing. What is worse, unlike Lenin she
does not make it clear that self-determination is one form of bourgeois
democracy, and thereby renders vague the decisively important practical
point that this for the working class this demand is historically limited.
Even when Lenin defended national self-determination, he never blurred
its historical and class content. For Lenin, national self-determination
was one part of bourgeois democracy, and therefore once this democracy
had been achieved it immediately became a reactionary slogan which should
be unconditionally opposed by the working class. Luxemburg’s “national
autonomy,” on the other hand, believes that it is necessary to hold on
to nationalistic pipe dreams even after bourgeois rule has been established!
Luxemburg aspired for a revolution throughout the Russian empire to overthrow
Czarism, and lead to democracy in Poland as well. At the same time, this
was supposed to make possible “national autonomy,” i.e. “national cultural
autonomy,” and she said that this would be in the interests of the class
struggles of the workers. She felt that development of class struggles
would need “all the components of which a spiritual culture is made,”
and that the most important of these is the unrestricted development of
a national culture. At best, this is what Luxemburg means when she speaks
of the “independent national program of the working class.”
If Luxemburg recognizes that the interests of the working class require
“the elimination of national oppression, and guarantees against such oppression
worked out in the course of social development,” (p. 259), she would have
to recognize the significance of national self-determination. However,
while basically recognizing the significance of the development of class
struggles, but theoretically she denies its significance, and does not
even seem to be aware of the extent of her own self-contradictions. In
fact, it wouldn’t be strange at all if what Luxemburg calls “national
autonomy” were in fact national self-determination. Her “national self-determination”
has almost the same content as the right of national self-determination.
Nevertheless, she stubbornly denied that this was the same thing. She wants
to say that national self-determination is nationalistic, but “national
autonomy” is not. But is this indeed the case? How can it be said that
“national autonomy” is not nationalistic?
In fact, Luxemburg’s “national autonomy” or “national cultural autonomy”
are in fact completely nationalistic. The only difference is that the demand
for national self-determination is recognized as having a bourgeois nature,
and only being part of the program of the working class under certain conditions,
whereas “national cultural autonomy” appeared as a petty bourgeois slogan
from the beginning. The latter is a petty bourgeois demand under the rule
of capital that represents liberal deception. Luxemburg and others forget
the reactionary meaning of raising one of the democratic tasks (i.e. national
program) after the bourgeois democratic tasks have been fundamentally solved.
Under bourgeois democracy, it is not the national moment, but rather class
principles that must be raised and emphasized. Luxemburg, however, exposes
her own opportunism by saying that the national program can regain its
true meaning by means of the realization of bourgeois democracy. This is
precisely the “extreme theoretical weakness” (Lenin) of Luxemburg. The
formation of the nation state and the realization of democracy represent
the fundamental solution of the national problem as a historical task.
Therefore, after this point, national slogans become reactionary, and in
their place the emphasis should be placed on the class slogans. In this
situation, however, Luxemburg instead says that the nationalistic slogans
are fundamental. This causes unbelievable confusion and is nothing but
pure opportunism.
Isn’t it clear that if the Czarist system were eliminated in the Russian
Empire (including Poland) and democracy established, that this would also
represent the solution of the national problem? The recognition of the
right to self-determination would be part of this, i.e. the likely national
liberation of Poland and Finland and the political equality of all of the
people in the Russian empire. In short, principally speaking, it would
be clear that this democratic revolution would fundamentally solve the
national problem?this does not mean, however, that this problem will in
fact be permanently eliminated. In reality, even with the realization of
democracy various forms of “national discrimination” remain. However,
we need to recognize the significance that at least legally speaking “national
discrimination” is removed, and all of the citizens have equal rights.
It is important to recognize this because from this stage, the ultimate
task of the workers?of all nationalities?is not the national problem, but
rather the problem of class conflict. The nationalists, liberals, citizen
groups and opportunists will continue to focus on the focus on the “national
problem,” but for workers this is a problem with only secondary significance,
increasingly subsumed within the class problem. It is completely petty
bourgeois and opportunistic to say that the question of national autonomy
remains an essential problem even after the bourgeois democratic state
has been established.
Even at first sight, Luxemburg’s opinion is strange. On the on the hand,
she attacks the right of self-determination as bourgeois, from an abstract
standpoint of an extreme internationalism. (Lenin, incidentally, was extremely
of this aspect of her theory.) But in fact her position was an extremely
nationalistic one because she said that the nationalistic standpoint was
still important even after bourgeois democracy had triumphed?and indeed
more so in this case!?and that indeed at this stage nationalism (although
this is defined as “spiritual culture”) for the first time comes to take
on decisive significance. It seems that Luxemburg noisily attacks the right
of self-determination on the surface only in order to secretly introduce
petty bourgeois nationalism at the same time.
Rosa Luxemburg and the National Problem: Contents
- Introduction
- The Abstract Denial of Nationalism
- Are the National Tasks Bourgeois Tasks?
- The Theory of the “Nation-State” and the Class Interests of the Workers
- The “National Self-Determination” of Poland
- Centralized Power and Regional Autonomy
- Luxemburg’s Concept of Nation
- Luxemburg Begins to “Select” or Screen Nations
- National Cultural Autonomy and National Self-Determination
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