Written: 1904
Source: Revolutionary Socialist Organization by Rosa Luxemburg
Publisher: Integer Press, 1934
First Published: 1904 in Iskra and Neue Zeit
Online Version: marxists.org 1999
Transcribed: Andy Lehrer
HTML Markup: B. Basgen
This document represents Rosa Luxemburg’s contribution to the debate within the Russian Social Democratic movement on party organization and democratic centralism. Luxemburg joins Trotsky in warning of the dangers inherent in centralism and argues against the concentration of power in a Central Committee. From a Socialist Revolutionary perspective Luxemburg puts forward compelling arguments against Lenin’s conception of the revolutionary Party. For other contemporary contributions to the debate see Trotsky’s Our Political Tasks and Lenin’s What Is To Be Done? and One Step Forward, Two Steps Back )
Originally published as an article in 1904 under the title "Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy" in Iskra and Neue Zeit, later reprinted in pamphlet form titled Marxism vs. Leninism, and has since gone by that name. We are unclear as to whether or not Rosa choose that name, so our version remains true to the orginal title, as Rosa had at least initially intended.
Appeared in English in 1934 as Revolutionary Socialist Organization published by Integer and in 1935 as Leninism or Marxism? by the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation, Glasgow. In 1961, the University of Michigan Press reprinted the Integer translation, which had entered the public domain, in The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism? with an introduction by Bertram Wolfe. It also appears under the title "Organizational Questions of Social Democracy" as part of the 1970 Pathfinder Press compilation Rosa Luxemburg Speaks.
A.L.