Vol. 73/No. 44      November 16, 2009

BY ROSA LUXEMBURG  
The World War has given society a choice: either the continuation of capitalism, with new wars, and rapid decline into chaos and anarchy; or the abolition of capitalist exploitation.

With the end of the World War, the system of bourgeois class rule has forfeited its right to existence. It is no longer capable of leading society out of the frightful state of economic collapse that the imperialist orgy left behind.

The means of production have been destroyed on a gigantic scale and millions of producers slaughtered, the finest and strongest sons of the working class. Those who survived are greeted on their return by the ghastly spectre of poverty and unemployment, while famine and disease threaten to cut off the nation’s energy at its roots. National bankruptcy brought on by the enormous burden of war debts is inevitable.

There is no way out of the bloody confusion, no way back from the yawning abyss, no help or salvation, except through socialism. Only the proletarian world revolution can bring order into this chaos; provide work and bread for all; put a halt to mutual destruction of peoples; and bring peace, freedom, and genuine culture to tortured humanity. Down with the wage system!—that is the slogan of the hour. Cooperative labor shall replace wage labor and class domination. The tools of production must cease to be the monopoly of a single class; they must become the common property of all. No more exploiters and no more exploited! Regulate the production and distribution of goods in the interests of all. Abolish both the existing mode of production, which is exploitation and plunder, and the existing system of trade, which is nothing but fraud.

Instead of employers and their wage slaves: the free association of all workers! Work shall be no one’s torment because it shall be everyone’s duty. A decent, human existence for all who fulfill their obligation to society. Henceforth, hunger shall no longer be the curse of those who work but the punishment for those who do not.

Only a society such as this can eradicate bondage and hatred among nations. Only under a society such as this will the earth no longer be desecrated by killing. Only then will we be able to say,

“That was the last war.”

[ … ]

Bringing the socialist system into being is the most momentous task ever inherited by any class or revolution in world history. It will require totally rebuilding the state and completely transforming the economic and social foundations of society.

This rebuilding and transformation cannot be decreed by any agency, commission, or parliament; it can be taken in hand and carried out only by the people themselves.

In all previous revolutions, a small minority of the people led the revolutionary struggle, set its goals, gave it direction, and used the masses as a tool to achieve its own interests, the interests of a minority. The socialist revolution is the first one to triumph in the interests of the vast majority and the first one that can succeed only with the participation of the great majority of the toilers.

Not only are the proletarian masses called upon to act with clear understanding in defining the goals and giving leadership to the revolution, but they must also bring about socialism, step by step, by their own active intervention.

The essence of socialist society is that the vast, laboring masses cease to be ruled over and instead begin to experience every aspect of political and economic life for themselves—to run it and to acquire free and conscious control over their own destiny.

Therefore, from the highest state offices to the smallest community, the proletarian masses must replace the inherited institutions of class rule—federal councils, parliaments, town councils—with their own class institutions: the workers’ and soldiers’ councils. They must occupy every post, oversee every function, and measure every requirement of state by the standard of their own class interests and the goals of socialism. Furthermore, only constant, living interaction between the popular masses and their institutions, the councils, will enable them to imbue the government with the spirit of socialism.

By the same token, the economic transformation can be accomplished only if it is carried out by proletarian mass action. Mere decrees for socialization handed down by the highest revolutionary offices are in themselves empty phrases. Only action by the working class can turn words into reality. The workers can gain control of production and ultimately take over its management through intransigent hand-to-hand struggle against capital in every factory, through applying direct mass pressure, through strikes, and through creating their own, permanent, representative institutions.

The working masses must learn to transform themselves from lifeless automatons that capitalists insert into the production process, into free, thinking, self-activating administrators of that process. They have to acquire the sense of responsibility of functioning members of a community who as a whole are the sole proprietors of all social wealth.  
 
 
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