Reform or Revolution

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Rosa Luxemburg was one of the most important figures in the history of the international workers’ movement. Together with Lenin and Trotsky, she was the outstanding representative of Marxism in the 20th century. Reform or Revolution was one of the most important of her early writings, written in 1899, when she was just 28 years old. It provided a devastating demolition of the theoretical and practical basis of reformism. The book is a polemic against the revisionist tendency within the German Social Democrats centered around Eduard Bernstein, who had begun to suggest that Social Democracy could gradually change society by limiting itself to the struggle for reforms, rather than striving for revolution. Rosa explained that the ideas of reformism reflected the petty-bourgeois nature of the academics and “theoreticians” in the party apparatus, who ultimately favored collaboration with the bosses instead of class struggle. Reform or Revolution placed Luxemburg among the foremost leaders of the left of Social Democracy internationally, a role she was to occupy until her assassination in 1919. It remains one of the classic texts of Marxism. It was completely valid at the time when it was written and remains completely valid today. By Rosa Luxemburg With an introduction by Alan Woods and Niklas Albin Svensson 81 pages. Show more