Rosa Luxemburg on the Dialectics of Proletarian Internationalism and Social Patriotism

Red Rosa was not a national nihilist, despite common misperceptions. She was well aware of the intrinsic value of the national language and culture. Her concept of territorial autonomy stood on a broader scale than even the Austro-Marxists' concept of cultural autonomy. In the final instance, however, she failed to advance to a fully dialectical recognition of revolutionary internationalism and social patriotism because of her deeply rooted opposition to the positions of the Polish Socialist Party in practice and her proletarian fundamentalism in theory. Luxemburg did not recognize ultimately what the right of national self-determination meant to the mass of oppressed nationalities. That is why Luxemburgism has a poor reputation among Marxists of peripheral countries still struggling with the national question. Luxemburg's universalist stance of Enlightened Marxism, however, implies a valuable criticism of "Third World" or populist socialism. The historical evaluation of Luxemburg should be freed not only from the international nihilist view of some rightist social patriots, but also from the Eurocentric view of classical and some contemporary Western Marxists.