Challenging Peter Garret

One of the most famous writings in the history of
socialism is the Junius Pamphlet, written by German
socialist Rosa Luxemburg in 1915 while she was in prison for
opposing the first world war.

Obviously, many things have changed in the world and in the
socialist movement in the 90 years since the beginning of that
war. But some things have stayed the same. Take Luxemburg's
descriptions of capitalist profiteering on the war:
"Business is flourishing upon the ruins" and
"Profits are springing, like weeds, from the fields of
the dead". Who could think of a better description for
the plunder of Iraq by the likes of Bechtel and Halliburton?

Take the fantastic lies peddled by the German government to
its own people about the reasons for the war — that
Germany had been invaded by Russian troops, that bombs had
been dropped by "Frenchmen flying over Nuremberg",
that a French doctor had poisoned the wells at Montsigny with
cholera, that there were "Russian students who hurl bombs
from every bridge in Berlin". Could these, and
Luxemburg's description of the whipping up of the populace
into "spy-hunting" and chasing
"suspicious-looking automobiles", fail to demand
comparison with the fables of Iraq's weapons of mass deception
and sponsorship of terrorists within our midst?

Take Luxemburg's searing condemnation of the betrayal of
the principles of international socialism by the official
leaderships of the socialist parties in Germany, France, and
Britain. Tony Blair may be unable to betray the principles of
international socialism — you can't betray principles
that you've never subscribed to — but the leaders of the
British Labour Party have outdone even their treacherous
forbears of 1914 in enthusiastically joining Bush's coalition
of the killing.

Likewise, the repudiation of the class struggle by the
likes of Henderson, Legien, and Lensch is outdone by the Tony
Blairs of today in their taking up of the class struggle
against the working people on behalf of the capitalists.

Take Luxemburg's description of how, in imperial conquest,
"an ancient civilisation was delivered into the hands of
destruction and anarchy, with fire and slaughter ... when
Persia gasped in the noose of the foreign rule of force that
closed inexorably about her throat". Arab civilisation
has bequeathed to us some of the finest products of human
culture. For example, the theoretical grounds for the
invention of the modern digital computer were devised by a
ninth century Persian mathematician, Abu Jafar Mohammed ibn
Musa al Khowarizm, and the word "algebra" derives
from the Arabic word al jabr. Who could fail to feel
the force of Luxemburg's words on recalling the sacking in
April 2003 of the National Museum of Iraq?

In the Junius Pamphlet, Luxemburg argues that the
choice facing humanity is one of socialism or barbarism:
"We stand today ... before the awful proposition: either
the triumph of imperialism and the destruction of all culture,
and, as in ancient Rome, depopulation, desolation,
degeneration, a vast cemetery; or, the victory of
socialism."

In the early stages of the 21st century, the choice before
us is even starker — without socialism, our children and
our children's children will find themselves in a vast
cemetery, a brutal world where Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay
serve as models for the treatment of human beings, where
environmental catastrophe is inevitable, and where the finest
products of human culture are sold off to the highest bidder.

Rosa Luxemburg and her fellow revolutionary Karl Leibknecht
were brutally murdered in January 1919 by the reactionary
troops of a right-wing social-democratic government.

The Socialist Alliance stands squarely in the tradition of
Luxemburg, Leibknecht and the other socialists of 90 years ago
who refused to betray their principles. We oppose
unconditionally the war in Iraq and call unconditionally for
the immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops. We subscribe
to Luxemburg's words at the end of the Junius
Pamphlet: "This madness will not stop, and this
bloody nightmare of hell will not cease until the workers of
Germany, of France, of Russia and of England, will wake up out
of their drunken sleep; will clasp each others hands in
brotherhood and will drown the bestial chorus of war agitators
and the hoarse cry of capitalist hyenas with the mighty cry of
labour, 'Workers of all countries, unite!'"

Alex Miller

[The author is a member of the Socialist Alliance-Green
Left Weekly editorial board. The Junius Pamphlet
is available at <
http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/junius/index.ht
A HREF="mailto:m"><m>.]

From Green Left Weekly, August 18, 2004.

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From GLW issue 594