Reform or Revolution

Reform or Revolution is Rosa Luxemburg’s 1899 polemic against Eduard Bernstein’s revisionist theory of gradual social change. It argues that reforms can improve workers’ conditions but cannot replace the revolutionary transformation of capitalism.

Rosa Luxemburg: Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist and revolutionary socialist active in German and Polish politics. She wrote the polemic to defend revolutionary Marxism against revisionism.
Capital accumulation: Capital accumulation is the reinvestment of surplus value to expand capital and production. Luxemburg argues that accumulation continually reproduces capitalism’s economic structure.
Revolution: A revolution is a fundamental transformation of political or social institutions, often involving a transfer of power. Luxemburg argues that socialism requires a transformation reforms alone cannot accomplish.
German Social Democratic Party: The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a political party founded in the nineteenth century and historically associated with organized labor. Its debates over strategy formed the immediate political setting for the polemic.
Eduard Bernstein: Eduard Bernstein was a German social democrat whose revisionist writings advocated gradual reform of capitalism. His claims about capitalism and socialism are the polemic’s central target.
Trade unions: Trade unions are organizations through which workers collectively negotiate wages and working conditions. Luxemburg treats union gains as defensive improvements within the wage system.
Evolutionary Socialism: Evolutionary Socialism is Eduard Bernstein’s 1899 book arguing for gradual democratic reform rather than revolutionary rupture. Bernstein’s book sets out the position Luxemburg directly contests.
Erfurt Program: The Erfurt Program was the German Social Democratic Party’s 1891 program, combining a Marxist analysis with immediate political demands. Bernstein’s revisionism challenged tensions already present in the party’s program.
Revisionism: Revisionism is the reassessment of established political doctrine, especially Bernstein’s effort to revise Marxism toward gradual reform. Luxemburg frames Bernstein’s gradualism as a revision of Marxist theory.
Parliamentary reform: Parliamentary reform changes laws and public policy through elected legislative institutions. It is one route Bernstein favors, but Luxemburg denies it can abolish capitalist power.

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