Luxemburg’s Socialist Theory and Its Limits — Concurrently on the Fundamental Divergence between Luxemburg and Lenin’s Theories

In the history of the development of Marxism and the international communist movement, both Luxemburg and Lenin were outstanding representatives of left-wing theorists. The two made significant contributions to opposing revisionism and defending Marxism. However, they held major differences in their views on “how to realize socialism” and “how to build socialism,” and consequently engaged in heated debates over these issues. In the 1930s, Stalin accused Luxemburg of having offered theoretical criticisms of Lenin, asserting that Luxemburg’s theory was “Menshevik in character” and “required the most severe Bolshevik criticism.” [1]1 Stalin’s characterization of Luxemburg’s theory as “Menshevik in character” appears in his 1931 letter “Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism,” where he criticized her positions on party organization and the national question as deviating from Leninism. This theoretical positioning, to a certain extent, influenced the scientific analysis of Luxemburg and her theory in Soviet and Chinese academic circles. In the 1980s, some scholars in Chinese academic circles began to independently consider and study Luxemburg’s theory, publishing a number of results with academic value. Entering the 1990s, influenced by the trends of neoliberalism and democratic socialism, some scholars, while summing up the lessons of the drastic changes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, exhibited a tendency to over-interpret Luxemburg’s ideas on socialist democracy. Entering the 21st century, with the surging wave of economic globalization, the impact of the international financial crisis, and the entry of socialism with Chinese characteristics into the New Era, a comprehensive interpretation of Luxemburg’s socialist theory has become an important research topic in Chinese academic circles, and a re-examination of the intellectual confrontation between the two great figures, Lenin and Luxemburg, has become the focal point in the study of Luxemburg’s socialist theory.

在马克思主义发展史和国际共产主义运动史上，卢森堡和列宁都是左翼理论家的杰出代表，二人为反对修正主义、捍卫马克思主义作出了重大贡献。但二人在“怎样实现社会主义”“怎样建设社会主义”的问题上存在重大的观点分歧，并因此展开过激烈争论。20世纪30年代，斯大林指责卢森堡对列宁提出过的理论批评，认为卢森堡的理论具有“孟什维主义的货色”，“需要布尔什维克的极严厉的批评”。这样的理论定位，在一定程度上影响了苏联和中国学术界对卢森堡及其理论的科学分析。20世纪80年代，中国学术界的一些学者开始独立思考和研究卢森堡的理论，发表了一批具有学术价值的成果。进入90年代，受新自由主义和民主社会主义思潮的影响，一些学者在对苏东剧变的教训进行总结时，一度出现过分解读卢森堡的社会主义民主思想的倾向。进入21世纪，随着经济全球化浪潮的奔涌、国际金融危机的冲击和中国特色社会主义进入新时代，全面诠释卢森堡社会主义理论成为中国学术界研究的重要课题，而重新审视列宁和卢森堡这两位伟人之间的思想交锋，成为卢森堡社会主义理论研究中的焦点。

I. The Logical Premise of Luxemburg’s Socialist Theory

一、卢森堡社会主义理论的逻辑前提

To grasp the essence and characteristics of Luxemburg’s socialist theory as a whole and to clarify the fundamental reasons for the theoretical divergence between her and Lenin, one must first conduct an in-depth analysis of the logical premise on which Luxemburg’s socialist theory was put forward.

要总体把握卢森堡社会主义理论的要义和特质、厘清她和列宁之间产生理论分歧的根本原因，首先必须对卢森堡社会主义理论提出的逻辑前提进行深入分析。

1. *The Accumulation of Capital* and Its Feedback and Interpretation

1.《资本积累论》及其反馈、阐释

Marx and Engels pointed out that any theory is the essence of its era, the reflection of the era’s actual content in thought. Luxemburg’s socialist theory is no exception. Luxemburg’s fundamental understanding of the theme of the era at the beginning of the 20th century constitutes the logical premise of her socialist theory. Although Luxemburg did not write a specialized article on the question of the era, she was one of the earliest theorists to propose a theory of imperialism. In the original preface to *The Accumulation of Capital*, Luxemburg stated that her study of capital accumulation was intended to theoretically explore the objective economic roots of imperialist policies, to explain the historical position and developmental trends of contemporary capitalism, and thereby to “have some significance” for the practical struggle of the proletariat. This implies that, in Luxemburg’s view, *The Accumulation of Capital* is not entirely an economic work but also a philosophical work expressing her conception of the era. According to Luxemburg’s theory of capital accumulation, the key to capital accumulation lies in whether the capitalist can find in reality an ever-expanding “stratum of buyers” to ensure the realization of surplus value, and within the purely capitalist economic relations, this “stratum of buyers” cannot be found. This “stratum of buyers” must be independent of capitalist economic relations and enter into relations with capitalism through exchange. That is to say, the demand of capital accumulation forces capitalism to continuously enter into exchange relations with the non-capitalist economic environment. In this exchange relationship, the capitalist mode of production continuously erodes and dissolves the non-capitalist mode of production, transforming the non-capitalist mode of production into the capitalist mode of production. This causes the capitalist economic environment to continuously expand while the non-capitalist economic environment continuously shrinks. The logic of capital accumulation drives capitalism toward collapse from two aspects. On the one hand, from the perspective of the laws of capitalist economic development, the final result of capital accumulation inevitably leads to the capitalist mode of production becoming the sole economic form in all countries and all production sectors. Once this state is reached, capitalism will be unable to continue capital accumulation due to the disappearance of the non-capitalist economic environment, and the historical fate of capitalism’s collapse becomes unavoidable. On the other hand, from the perspective of the laws of class struggle, the scale of the capitalist mode of production worldwide grows ever larger, accompanied by the continuous expansion of anarchy in world economic production and the increasing sharpening of the international class struggle. The international proletariat can only escape its oppressed and exploited position and historical fate by launching an insurrection against the international bourgeoisie “before the final result of economic development arrives” and realizing socialism.

马克思恩格斯指出，任何理论都是时代的精华，是时代的现实内容在思想上的反映，卢森堡的社会主义理论亦是如此。卢森堡对20世纪初时代主题的根本认识，是卢森堡社会主义理论的逻辑前提。虽然卢森堡没有专门阐述时代问题的文章，但她是最早提出帝国主义论的理论家之一。在《资本积累论》的原序中，卢森堡表示她研究资本积累，是为了从理论上探析帝国主义政策的客观经济根源，说明现今资本主义所处的历史方位和发展趋势，进而对无产阶级的实际斗争“具有一些意义”。这意味着，在卢森堡的心目中，《资本积累论》不完全是一部经济学著作，同时也是一部表达自己时代观的哲学著作。根据卢森堡的资本积累论，资本积累的关键在于资本家能不能在现实中找到一个不断扩大的“购买者阶层”来保证剩余价值的实现，而在纯粹的资本主义经济关系中是找不到这个“购买者阶层”的。这个“购买者阶层”必须独立于资本主义经济关系之外通过交换与资本主义发生关系。也就是说，资本积累的需求迫使资本主义不断同非资本主义经济环境发生交换关系。在这一交换关系中，资本主义生产方式会不断侵蚀和瓦解非资本主义生产方式，将非资本主义生产方式改造成资本主义生产方式，这就导致资本主义的经济环境不断扩大而非资本主义的经济环境不断缩小。资本积累的逻辑从两个方面迫使资本主义走向崩溃。一方面，从资本主义经济发展规律来看，资本积累的最后结果必然导致资本主义生产方式成为一切国家和一切生产部门的唯一的经济形式。而一旦达到这种境地，资本主义就会因为非资本主义经济环境的消失而无法继续进行资本积累，资本主义崩溃的历史命运不可避免。另一方面，从阶级斗争规律来看，全世界资本主义生产方式的规模越来越大，与此相伴随的是世界经济生产的无政府状态不断扩大，国际阶级斗争日益尖锐。国际无产阶级只有在“经济发展的最后结果到来之前”发动反对国际资产阶级的暴动，实现社会主义，才能摆脱受压迫受剥削的地位和历史命运。

After the publication of Luxemburg’s *The Accumulation of Capital*, it was fiercely criticized by theorists of the Second International. In responding to the criticism, Luxemburg clearly stated that at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the revisionists of the Second International had abandoned dialectics and historical materialism, regarding capitalism as an eternal society conforming to natural laws and the rational essence of humanity, and treating the realization of the socialist goal as “insignificant.” Only by combining her *The Accumulation of Capital* with the struggle against the absurd views of Second International revisionism could one understand the essence of the questions she raised. However, all the critics failed to grasp this essence; they merely fixated on the mathematical schemas presented in *The Accumulation of Capital*, analyzing and criticizing her theory at the economic level. Luxemburg emphasized that *The Accumulation of Capital* employs Marx’s historical method and the dialectics of capital’s self-negation, transforming the logic of capital accumulation into the logic of the entire capitalist system, linking it to the logical premise of socialism, and thereby demonstrating, from the perspective of the overall global political-economic configuration and the general process of human societal development, that the theme of the era at the beginning of the 20th century was the demise of capitalism and the realization of socialism.

卢森堡的《资本积累论》发表后，遭到了第二国际理论家的激烈批评。卢森堡在回应批评的时候明确表示，19世纪末20世纪初，第二国际的修正主义者抛弃了辩证法和唯物史观，将资本主义看作是合乎自然规律、符合人的理性本质的永恒的社会，将社会主义目标的实现看作是“微不足道”的。只有将她的《资本积累论》同反对第二国际修正主义荒谬观点的斗争结合起来，才能理解她所提出问题的实质。然而，所有的批评家们都没有抓住这个实质，他们只是纠结于《资本积累论》中提出的数学图式，对她的理论进行经济学层面的分析和批评。卢森堡强调指出，《资本积累论》运用马克思的历史方法和资本自我否定的辩证法，将资本积累的逻辑演变成为整个资本主义制度的逻辑，并将其与社会主义的逻辑前提联系起来，进而从世界政治经济总格局和人类社会发展总过程的角度论证了20世纪初的时代主题是资本主义的灭亡和社会主义的实现。

2. The Early 20th Century as the Stage of Capitalism’s Decline

2.20世纪初是资本主义走向灭亡的阶段

The early 20th century is the stage of capitalism’s decline — this was Luxemburg’s overall assessment of the era in which she lived. According to the logic of *The Accumulation of Capital*, capitalism has a tendency to engulf the globe and eliminate all non-capitalist economic tendencies, yet capitalism is also an economic form that cannot exist independently without the non-capitalist economy. With the global expansion of capitalism and the decline of non-capitalist economic forms, the conditions for capital accumulation become the conditions for capitalism’s decline. Based on changes in the conditions of capital accumulation, Luxemburg divided capitalism into three stages: “the struggle of capital against the natural economy, the struggle of capital against the commodity economy, and the struggle of capital on the world stage for the existing conditions of accumulation.” [2]2 This tripartite periodization of capitalism is drawn from Luxemburg’s *The Accumulation of Capital*, Chapter 27, “The Struggle of Capital against the Natural Economy,” and subsequent chapters. Luxemburg believed that at the beginning of the 20th century, capitalism had entered its third stage, i.e., the stage where capital struggles on a global scale to seize the non-capitalist environment. This is the final stage of capitalist development, also called the imperialist stage. In the imperialist stage, militarism and colonialism become universally implemented policies of capitalist states. Conflicts among capitalist states continuously arise due to arms races and war preparations, and the entire world is filled with “violence, fraud, oppression, and plunder.” [3]3 This phrase reflects Luxemburg’s characterization of imperialism in her 1913 work *The Accumulation of Capital* and her 1915 pamphlet *The Crisis of Social Democracy* (the Junius Pamphlet). Luxemburg said: “Today, whether in Europe or in other parts of the world, those who confront each other with weapons in hand are not, on one side, a capitalist country and, on the other, a country with a natural economy, but precisely those countries whose capitalist development has reached an equally high level, forcing them into conflict.” [4]4 This quotation is from Luxemburg’s *The Accumulation of Capital*, Chapter 30, “The Struggle of Capital against the Commodity Economy.” Once war breaks out between capitalist countries, it will have “fatal significance” for the world. [5]5 This expression of the fatal consequences of inter-imperialist war is a recurring theme in Luxemburg’s writings, notably in the Junius Pamphlet. Furthermore, while the bourgeoisie of imperialist countries intensifies external aggression and expansion, it continuously deepens the degree of exploitation of the domestic working class, thereby triggering a series of political and economic crises at both the international and domestic levels, ultimately making it impossible for capital accumulation to continue. This fully demonstrates that the contradictions inherent in capital accumulation prevent capitalism from becoming a universal global mode of production. Only socialism, whose purpose is not capital accumulation but the improvement of the people’s living standards, can be a harmonious economic system and become a universal global mode of production. Therefore, to completely resolve the contradictions of capital accumulation, capitalism must be replaced by socialism.

20世纪初是资本主义走向灭亡的阶段，这是卢森堡对所处时代的总看法。根据《资本积累论》的逻辑，资本主义具有吞噬全球、消灭一切非资本主义经济倾向，但资本主义又是一个不能脱离非资本主义经济而独立存在的经济形态。随着资本主义在全球的扩张，非资本主义经济形态的衰退，资本积累的条件就成了资本主义衰退的条件。以资本积累条件的变化为依据，卢森堡把资本主义划分为三阶段：“资本对自然经济的斗争，资本对商品经济的斗争，资本在世界舞台上为争夺现存的积累条件而斗争。”卢森堡认为，20世纪初资本主义进入到第三个阶段，即资本为了争夺非资本主义环境而在世界范围内展开斗争的阶段，这是资本主义发展的最后一个阶段，也称帝国主义阶段。在帝国主义阶段，军国主义和殖民主义就成了资本主义国家普遍推行的政策。资本主义国家之间因扩军备战而不断发生冲突，整个世界充满了“暴力、欺诈、压迫和掠夺”。卢森堡说：“今天无论在欧洲或者世界其他部分，手持武器互相对抗的，不是这一方是资本主义国家，另一方是自然经济的国家，而恰恰是由于资本主义发展达到同样高的水平而迫使发生冲突的那些国家。”一旦资本主义国家之间爆发战争，对于世界来说将“具有致命的意义”。再加上，帝国主义国家的资产阶级在加强对外侵略扩张的同时，不断加深对本国工人阶级的剥削程度，从而在国际、国内两个层面引发一系列的政治、经济危机，最终导致资本积累无法继续进行。这充分说明，资本积累自身所包含的矛盾，使得资本主义不能成为全球普遍的生产方式。只有社会主义生产的目的不是为了资本积累，而是为了提高人民的生活水平，所以，只有社会主义才是一种和谐的经济制度，才能够成为全球普遍的生产方式。因此，要彻底解决资本积累的矛盾，必须用社会主义代替资本主义。

3. The Early 20th Century as the Era of Proletarian Socialist Revolution

3.20世纪初是无产阶级社会主义革命的时代

Although the logic of capital accumulation determines that the capitalist mode of production is inevitably heading for a dead end, the proletariat cannot passively wait for capitalism to die out on its own. The result of capitalism’s spontaneous demise would not be socialism, but the overall collapse of human civilization, a regression of social history toward a state of barbarism. Therefore, launching a socialist revolution before the collapse of capitalism to save human civilization is the historical mission of the proletariat. If Luxemburg’s theory of capital accumulation is elevated to the level of a conception of history, it embodies a view of history in which capitalism is bound to perish — this is an objective inevitability determined by the logic of capital — while the victory of socialism, in addition to this dimension of objective inevitability, must also “be decided by a class-conscious proletariat” and be realized through the proletariat’s radical revolutionary action; this is the dimension of the proletariat’s subjective initiative, and neither can be dispensed with. In this sense, Luxemburg repeatedly declared that socialist revolution is the historical mission entrusted to the proletariat by the era.

虽然资本积累的逻辑决定了资本主义生产方式必然走向绝境，但是无产阶级不能消极等待资本主义的自行消亡。资本主义的自行消亡所带来的结果不是社会主义，而是人类文明的整体性崩塌，是社会历史向野蛮状态的倒退。所以，在资本主义崩溃到来之前发动社会主义革命以拯救人类文明，是无产阶级的历史使命。如果将卢森堡的资本积累论上升到历史观层面，那么它体现出了这样一种历史观：资本主义必然灭亡，这是由资本逻辑所决定的客观必然性；而社会主义的胜利除了客观必然性这一维度之外，还必须“要由有阶级觉悟的无产阶级来决定”，要通过无产阶级激进的革命行动来实现，这是无产阶级主观能动性的维度，二者缺一不可。从这个意义来说，卢森堡一再声明社会主义革命是时代赋予无产阶级的历史使命。

II. The Core Essentials of Luxemburg’s Socialist Theory

二、卢森堡社会主义理论的核心要义

Luxemburg’s socialist theory is divided into two parts: first, reflections on how to achieve socialism; second, reflections on how to build socialism. The reflections on the path to achieving socialism are mainly elaborated in the struggle against revisionism; the reflections on how to build socialism are expounded in the critique of the strategies and policies of the Russian Bolshevik Party in governing the state. These two parts form a unified whole with a close internal connection.

卢森堡的社会主义理论分为两个部分，一是对怎样实现社会主义的思考；二是对怎样建设社会主义的思考。对社会主义实现路径的思考主要是在同修正主义作斗争中阐述出来的；对怎样建设社会主义问题的思考是在对俄国布尔什维克党治国战略策略的反思中阐发的。这两个部分是一个统一整体，具有缜密的内在联系。

1. How to Achieve Socialism

1.怎样实现社会主义

First, the method of achieving socialism. Bernstein put forward two famous propositions on the question of socialism: one is “the movement is everything, the final goal is nothing”; the other is “the peaceful growth into socialism.” These two propositions are mutually presupposed and corroborate each other, incisively expressing revisionist thought centered on social reform. Luxemburg refuted this, arguing that whether socialism is achieved through social reform or social revolution is not a general strategic question but a key issue concerning the very survival of the socialist movement. She pointed out that social reform is a legislative activity carried out by a given society to resolve relations of rights among people, operating “within the framework of an already established social formation” and representing a process of quantitative accumulation in social progress. Social revolution, by contrast, is a political action aimed at thoroughly eradicating the economic roots of the old system and establishing a new social system; it occurs at the historical juncture of the replacement of social systems and is the force driving qualitative social change. Only with social revolution as the goal do the achievements of social reform acquire meaning. Luxemburg noted that the purpose of revisionism in substituting social reform for social revolution is to confine the socialist movement forever within the “framework of the social formation” of capitalism. In this way, the socialist “movement itself would inevitably perish.” Furthermore, from the perspective of the class nature of the state, the bourgeoisie, in order to maintain its own ruling position, will inevitably exploit and oppress the proletariat and use violence to suppress proletarian resistance. No matter how many seeds of socialism are nurtured within capitalist society, capitalism cannot “peacefully grow into socialism.” Only by seizing political power from the bourgeoisie through class struggle and violent revolution and establishing a new socialist system can the proletariat fundamentally change its own fate. Therefore, only social revolution is the method for achieving socialism, and only a movement that takes social revolution as its ultimate goal is a socialist movement.

第一，实现社会主义的方式。伯恩施坦在社会主义问题上提出了两个著名的命题：一个是“运动就是一切，最终目的是微不足道的”；另一个是“和平长入社会主义”。这两个命题互为前提，相互佐证，精辟地表达了以社会改良为核心的修正主义思想。卢森堡批驳说，实现社会主义是通过社会改良还是社会革命，不是一般性的策略问题，而是关系到社会主义运动存废的关键问题。她指出，社会改良是一定社会为了解决人们之间的权利关系而进行的立法活动，是在已经建立的“社会形态的框框里进行活动”，是社会进步中量的积累过程。而社会革命是为了彻底铲除旧制度的经济根源、建立新社会制度而进行的政治行动，是发生在社会制度更替的历史关头，是推动社会质变的力量。只有以社会革命为目标，社会改良的成果才具有意义。卢森堡指出，修正主义用社会改良代替社会革命的目的，就是要使社会主义运动永远局限在资本主义这一“社会形态的框框”之内。这样一来，社会主义“运动本身也必然要灭亡”。再则，从国家的阶级性来看，资产阶级为了维护自身的统治地位，必然会剥削和压迫无产阶级，用暴力镇压无产阶级的反抗。无论资本主义社会中孕育了多少社会主义的萌芽，资本主义都不可能“和平长入社会主义”。无产阶级只有通过阶级斗争和暴力革命从资产阶级手中夺取政权，建立新的社会主义制度才能彻底改变自身的命运。所以，只有社会革命才是社会主义的实现方式，只有以社会革命为最终目的的运动才是社会主义运动。

Second, the main force for achieving socialism. Although Luxemburg, through her exposition of the logic of capital accumulation, demonstrated the inevitable tendency of capitalism to perish, she was not a fatalist waiting for capitalism’s natural extinction. She pointed out that in the process of capitalism’s decline, the intervention of the historical subject is one of the necessary conditions for achieving socialism. Luxemburg emphasized that “the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class itself,” and that the broad masses of the people are the source of vibrant revolutionary force and the main force for achieving socialism. On the question of the subject of socialist revolution, Luxemburg had a famous thesis: “the logic of the objective historical process precedes the subjective logic of the embodiment of the historical process.” Socialist revolution is the natural outcome that emerges as the broad masses of the people gradually mature in the practice of struggle; it is not created by a minority. According to this logical principle, Luxemburg delineated the hierarchy and position of the masses of the people and the proletarian party within the subject of socialist revolution. First, the masses of the people are the creators of history, the subject at the first level, and the core force constituting the subject of socialist revolution. Socialist revolution “is based on the support and participation of the broadest masses.” Second, the Social Democratic Party is the guiding force of the mass movement, the subject at the second level; the Social Democratic Party cannot replace the masses of the people as the primary subject of socialist revolution. In the socialist movement, the theoretical inculcation and organizational discipline imposed by the Social Democratic Party on the masses are necessary, but the theoretical work and organizational work of the Social Democratic Party can only give the masses a “theoretical” and “latent” class consciousness; this “theoretical” and “latent” class consciousness can only be transformed into “actual” and “active” class consciousness through the real movement of the masses. Therefore, the leaders of the Social Democratic Party must go deep into the mass movement, constantly grasping the intentions of the masses and the dynamics of the movement. If the proletarian party and the masses in Luxemburg’s socialist theory are metaphorically compared to a vine and a tree trunk, then the growth and development of the tree trunk determine the growth and direction of the vine, not the reverse. This vividly illustrates Luxemburg’s principle that “the logic of the objective historical process precedes the subjective logic of the embodiment of the historical process.”

第二，实现社会主义的主体力量。尽管卢森堡通过对资本积累逻辑的阐释，论证了资本主义必然灭亡的趋势，但她并不是一个等待资本主义自然消亡的宿命论者。她指出，在资本主义走向灭亡的过程中，历史主体的干预是实现社会主义的必要条件之一。卢森堡强调，“工人阶级的解放必须是工人阶级自己的事业”，广大人民群众才是生机勃勃的革命力量的源泉，是实现社会主义的主体力量。在社会主义革命主体的问题上，卢森堡有一个著名的论断，即“客观历史进程的逻辑先于历史进程的体现者的主观逻辑”。社会主义革命是广大人民群众在斗争实践中不断成熟后自然生成的结果，不是被少数人创造出来的。根据这一逻辑原则，卢森堡划分了人民群众、无产阶级政党在社会主义革命主体中的层级和地位。首先，人民群众是历史的创造者，是处于第一层级的主体，是构成社会主义革命主体的核心力量。社会主义革命“是以最广大的群众的支持与参与作基础”的。其次，社会民主党是群众运动的引导力量，是处于第二层级的主体，社会民主党不能代替人民群众成为社会主义革命的第一主体。在社会主义运动中，社会民主党对群众进行的理论灌输和组织规训是必要的，但是社会民主党的理论工作和组织工作只能给予人民群众一种“理论的”和“潜在的”阶级意识，这种“理论的”和“潜在的”阶级意识只有通过人民群众现实的运动才能变成“实际的”和“积极的”的阶级意识。所以，社会民主党的领袖要深入到群众运动中去，时时刻刻把握群众的意图和运动的动态。如果将卢森堡社会主义理论中的无产阶级政党和群众分别比喻成藤蔓和树干，那么树干的发展壮大就决定了藤蔓的生长和方向，而非相反。这就形象地阐释了卢森堡“客观历史进程的逻辑先于历史进程的体现者的主观逻辑”的原则。

Clearly, the above propositions of Luxemburg are entirely different from Lenin’s views. Lenin held that spontaneous mass movements cannot produce advanced class consciousness, but can only produce trade-union consciousness. The class consciousness of the proletariat must be “inculcated” into the mass movement from outside by the proletarian party. The theoretical inculcation and organizational discipline of the masses by the proletarian party are the decisive factors for the proletariat to grow from a class-in-itself into a class-for-itself. The proletarian party is the leading force and core strength of the subject of the socialist revolution; without the political leadership and theoretical instruction of the proletarian party, there will be no revolutionary movement of the masses. It can be seen that the divergence between Luxemburg and Lenin on this issue is fundamental, and this is the root cause of their divergence on the question of organizational principles. Luxemburg believed that, since the socialist revolution is based on the workers’ movement and the initiative of the masses, it is the healthy form of development for the socialist movement that the worker masses spontaneously carry out the movement, and in the process of advancing the movement through exploring experience and correcting mistakes, they gradually move toward centralization and unity. She called this process the “self-centralism” of the worker masses. The Social Democratic Party historically emerged from the spontaneous workers’ movement, so the organizational principle of the Social Democratic Party is also the “self-centralism of the proletarian leading stratum.” Luxemburg held that Lenin’s party organizational principle was “ultra-centralism,” which replaced the “self-centralism” of the workers’ movement with the “centralism” of the Party’s Central Committee. In this way, the Party’s central organs stand high above, deciding everything for the Party, and all activities of Party organizations at all levels blindly obey the central organs. Consequently, every Party member becomes an executive machine for the will of the Central Committee, and the Social Democratic Party becomes a party without active creative spirit, only a lifeless watchdog spirit, and the initiative of the broad masses is thereby stifled. To vividly express her opposing view to Lenin on the subject of the socialist revolution, Luxemburg explicitly stated: “The mistakes made by a truly revolutionary workers’ movement are, historically, infinitely more fruitful and valuable than the infallibility of the best ‘Central Committee.’” [10]10 Rosa Luxemburg, “Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy,” in *The Rosa Luxemburg Reader*, ed. Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004), p. 259. In general, both Luxemburg and Lenin were staunch advocates of socialist revolution; they opposed Bernstein’s revisionism and belonged to the left-wing camp within the phalanx of theorists of the Second International. However, under the same revolutionary stance, the two had a fundamental divergence on the question of the core force of the subject of the socialist revolution. After the Bolshevik Party seized power and became the ruling party, this fundamental divergence evolved into criticism of the Bolsheviks’ governance strategy.

显然，卢森堡的上述主张与列宁的观点是截然不同的。列宁认为，自发性的群众运动不能产生先进的阶级意识，只能产生工联主义意识。无产阶级的阶级意识，必须由无产阶级政党从外部“灌输”到群众运动中去。无产阶级政党对人民群众的理论灌输和组织规训，是无产阶级由自在阶级成长为自为阶级的决定性因素。无产阶级政党是社会主义革命主体的领导力量和核心力量，没有无产阶级政党的政治领导和理论教导，就不会有人民群众的革命运动。可以看出，卢森堡和列宁这个问题上分歧是根本性的，这是导致二人在组织原则问题上产生分歧的根本原因。卢森堡认为，既然社会主义革命是建立在工人运动和群众首创精神基础上的，那么工人群众自发地去开展运动，在推动运动前进的过程中通过探索经验、纠正错误而不断走向集中统一是社会主义运动健康发展的样态，她将这个过程称为工人群众的“自我集中制”。社会民主党在历史上是从自发的工人运动中产生的，所以社会民主党的组织原则也就是“无产阶级领导阶层的自我集中制”。卢森堡认为列宁的政党组织原则是“极端集中制”，是用党的中央委员会的“集中制”代替了工人运动的“自我集中制”。这样一来，党的中央机关高高在上，决定党的一切事情，党的各级组织的一切活动都盲目服从中央机关。于是，每个党员成了中央委员会意志的执行机器，社会民主党就成为没有积极的创造精神、只有一种毫无生气的看守精神的党，广大人民群众的首创精神也因此遭到扼杀。为了鲜明地表达她与列宁在社会主义革命主体问题上的对立观点，卢森堡明确说：“真正革命的工人运动所犯的错误，同一个最好的‘中央委员会’不犯错误相比，在历史上要有成果得多和有价值得多。”总的说来，卢森堡和列宁都是坚定的社会主义革命论者，他们反对伯恩施坦修正主义，在第二国际理论家方阵中同属于左翼阵营。但在相同的革命立场下，二人在社会主义革命主体核心力量的问题上，一直存在着根本分歧。在布尔什维克党夺取政权成为执政党后，这个根本分歧也就衍生为对布尔什维克治国策略的批评。

2. How to Build Socialism

2.怎样建设社会主义

First, it is necessary to fully unleash the initiative of the masses through people’s democracy. Luxemburg’s thought on socialist democracy is the embodiment of her people-centered thought in the issue of socialist construction. Luxemburg compared the cause of socialist construction to a virgin land of “thousands of problems,” and held that only the spontaneous creativity of the masses is the original force for cultivating this virgin land, as well as the driving force for socialism to “correct mistakes and open up new paths.” Luxemburg pointed out that the Social Democratic Party must be clearly aware that no socialist textbook can prescribe the details of what socialism looks like; it can only be written through the practice of the masses. Socialism is not “a sum of ready-made prescriptions that only need to be applied”; the program of the Social Democratic Party can only indicate “a few broad guidelines” for socialism, and cannot provide a detailed depiction of socialism. The measures for building socialism that the Social Democratic Party can foresee are only some compulsory “negative” measures to “abolish” the old system, such as the abolition of private property. As for the “positive things” of building a new socialist world, they cannot be known in advance, nor can they be decreed by leaders “from the office desk”; they can only be rooted in the initiative of the masses and the surging tide of life. This is not a shortcoming of socialism, but rather the superiority of socialism. Since the masses are the subject of socialist construction, democracy is the lifeblood of socialism. After the proletariat seizes power, it must fully develop people’s democracy and mobilize the initiative of the masses in building socialism. Based on Marx’s views, Luxemburg pointed out that all previous revolutions were for the interests of a minority, while the socialist revolution is the first revolution for the interests of the majority and participated in by the majority of working people. Therefore, after the victory of the revolution, to realize the interests of the majority of working people, it is necessary for the entire masses to participate in the public life of the country. The difference between socialist society and all previous societies lies precisely in that “the great majority of the working masses are no longer a ruled mass, but the masters of their entire political and economic life, and lead this entire life in conscious, free self-determination.” [11]11 Rosa Luxemburg, *The Russian Revolution*, in *The Rosa Luxemburg Reader*, p. 290.

第一，必须通过人民民主充分发挥人民群众的积极性。卢森堡的社会主义民主思想是她的人民主体思想在社会主义建设问题上的体现。卢森堡将社会主义建设事业比作一块“问题上千”的处女地，认为只有人民群众即兴而来的创造力，才是开垦这片处女地的原生力量，也是社会主义“纠正错误并且开辟新的道路”的动力。卢森堡指出，社会民主党必须清醒地认识到，社会主义是什么样子，任何社会主义的教科书都不可能对细节作出规定，只有通过人民群众的实践来书写。社会主义不是一个“只需要加以运用的现成的处方的总和”，社会民主党的纲领只能指明社会主义的“几条大的方针”，不能对社会主义进行详细的刻画。社会民主党所能预知的建设社会主义的措施，只是一些具有强制性的“废除”旧制度的“消极”措施，如废除私有财产等。至于建设社会主义新世界的“积极的东西”是不能提前预知的，也不是通过领袖从“办公桌下令实行”的方式来钦定的，它只能根植于人民群众的首创精神和汹涌澎湃的生活。这不但不是社会主义的缺点，反而是社会主义优越性之所在。既然人民群众是社会主义建设的主体，那么民主就是社会主义的生命。无产阶级在夺取政权后，就要充分发扬人民民主，调动人民群众建设社会主义的积极性。卢森堡根据马克思的观点指出，以往的一切革命都是为了少数人的利益，而社会主义革命是第一次为了大多数人利益并由大多数劳动者参加的革命。那么革命胜利后，要实现大多数劳动者的利益，就要使全体人民群众必须参加国家的公共生活。社会主义社会与以往一切社会的区别也正是在于“大多数劳动群众不再是被统治的群众，而是自己的全部政治和经济生活的主人，并且在有意识的、自由的自决中领导着这全部生活”。

So, how can a socialist state establish an effective democratic mechanism to mobilize the initiative of the masses? In Luxemburg’s view, capitalist society, in its long-term development, created universally effective democratic forms, such as the electoral system and the parliamentary system, which are also very necessary for the construction of democratic politics in a socialist state. As a Marxist, one must adopt a dialectical attitude toward bourgeois democracy. On the one hand, one must have a clear understanding of the reactionary essence of capitalist democracy and expose the hypocrisy of capitalist democracy in essence; on the other hand, one must distinguish the essence of capitalist democracy from its form, strip away the reactionary essence of capitalist democracy, preserve the form of capitalist democracy, and endow it with the essential content of socialist democracy. Luxemburg warned the Bolsheviks that the democratic forms arising from capitalist society are indispensable for the construction of socialist democracy; otherwise, the masses in a socialist state would lack effective channels to participate in social public life, the “lively source of all spiritual wealth and progress” of socialist construction would be blocked, and the vitality of socialism would wither. Therefore, Luxemburg opposed measures taken by the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution, such as dissolving the Constituent Assembly and banning the press of reactionary parties, [12]12 The Constituent Assembly was a democratically elected body convened in Russia in January 1918; the Bolsheviks dissolved it after one day when it refused to endorse Soviet decrees. The suppression of opposition newspapers followed the October Revolution as part of consolidating Bolshevik power. arguing that such practices “block the very living source itself that alone can correct all the innate defects of social institutions,” [13]13 Rosa Luxemburg, *The Russian Revolution*, in *The Rosa Luxemburg Reader*, p. 302. causing the political life of the people to be suppressed, democratic life to become increasingly paralyzed, the entire social public life to gradually fall silent, and ultimately making socialism unrecognizable.

那么，社会主义国家如何建立起有效的民主机制来调动人民群众的积极性？在卢森堡看来，资本主义社会在长期的发展中创造了普遍有效的民主形式，比如选举制度、议会制度等，而这对于社会主义国家的民主政治建设来说也是十分必要的。作为一个马克思主义者，必须用辩证的态度对待资产阶级民主。一方面要对资本主义民主的反动本质有清醒的认识，要从本质上揭露资本主义民主的虚伪性；另一方面要将资本主义民主的本质和形式区分开来，剥离资本主义民主的反动本质，保留资本主义民主的形式并赋予其社会主义民主的本质内容。卢森堡告诫布尔什维克，产生于资本主义社会的民主形式，对于社会主义民主建设来说也是不可缺少的，否则社会主义国家的人民群众就缺乏有效的途径参与社会公共生活，社会主义建设“一切精神财富和进步的生动活泼的泉源”就会被堵塞，社会主义的生命力就会枯竭。所以，卢森堡对布尔什维克在十月革命后解散立宪会议、取缔反动派报刊等措施持反对态度，认为这样的做法“堵塞了唯一能够纠正社会机构的一切天生缺陷的那一生机勃勃的源泉本身”，使得人民政治生活受到压制，民主生活日益瘫痪，整个社会公共生活逐渐沉寂，最终使得社会主义面目全非。

Second, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the guarantee of socialist democracy. Luxemburg pointed out that, from a class perspective, so-called “pure democracy” and “general democracy” do not exist. Democracy and dictatorship arise together; both have a class character. In capitalist society, bourgeois democracy and bourgeois dictatorship are essentially consistent: the purpose of bourgeois democracy is to conceal the essence of bourgeois economic exploitation and to uphold bourgeois dictatorship. In socialist society, socialist democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat are also essentially consistent. On the one hand, the dictatorship of the proletariat is built on the foundation of socialist democracy; the goal of socialist revolution is for the broad masses of the people to overthrow the bourgeois dictatorship and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat, and this goal “conforms to the will of the revolutionary majority of the proletariat and is carried out by relying on their will.” In this sense, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat is the realization of people’s democracy. On the other hand, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the political guarantee for “the entire people’s participation in the public life of the state.” Because the dictatorship of the proletariat is “a class dictatorship in the most open form, carried out with the most active and unrestricted participation of the masses, and practicing unrestricted democracy,” it is the cause of the entire proletariat and the masses of the people, not a cause carried out in the name of the class by a handful of leaders, still less the arbitrary decision of a minority. “It must everywhere rely on the active participation of the masses, be under their direct influence, accept the supervision of the entire public, and emerge from the masses’ increasingly developed political education.” In Luxemburg’s view, the error of the Bolshevik Party [14]14 The Bolshevik Party, led by Lenin, was the revolutionary vanguard that carried out the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and later became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. lay in completely opposing democracy and dictatorship, unilaterally upholding dictatorship while opposing democracy, thereby violating the principle of the broad nature of socialist democracy and turning the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship upholding a small clique. This, in essence, was “a dictatorship in the purely bourgeois sense, a dictatorship in the sense of Jacobin rule.” [15]15 The Jacobins were the radical revolutionary faction during the French Revolution (1789–1799), known for centralized rule and the Reign of Terror. Luxemburg uses this term to criticize what she saw as authoritarian tendencies in Bolshevik governance. After the October Revolution, the theorists of the Second International generally adopted a critical and negative attitude toward it; only Luxemburg highly praised the Bolsheviks’ resolute revolutionary actions, regarding the Bolshevik Party as the only party within the Second International that adhered to a revolutionary stance and held high the revolutionary banner. However, Luxemburg’s critique of the Bolshevik Party’s strategies for governing the Party and the state was sharp and left no room for leniency.

第二，无产阶级专政是社会主义民主的保障。卢森堡指出，从阶级观点来看，所谓“纯粹民主”“一般民主”是不存在的。民主与专政相伴而生，都具有阶级性。在资本主义社会里，资产阶级民主与资产阶级专政在本质上是一致的，资产阶级民主的目的是掩盖资产阶级经济剥削的实质，维护资产阶级专政。在社会主义社会，社会主义民主和无产阶级专政在本质上也是一致的。一方面，无产阶级专政建立在社会主义民主的基础上，社会主义革命的目的就是广大人民群众推翻资产阶级专政，建立无产阶级专政，而这个目的是“符合占无产阶级多数的革命者的意愿的，是依靠他们的意志实行的”。从这个意义上来说，无产阶级专政的建立就是人民民主的实现。另一方面，无产阶级专政是“全民参与国家的公共生活”的政治保障。因为无产阶级专政是“最大限度公开的、由人民群众最积极地，不受阻碍地参加的、实行不受限制的民主的阶级专政”，所以，无产阶级专政是整个无产阶级和人民群众的事业，而不是极少数领导人以阶级的名义实行的事业，更不是少数人的独断。“它必须处处依靠群众的积极参与，处于群众的直接影响下，接受全体公众的监督，从人民群众日益发达的政治教育中产生出来”。在卢森堡看来，布尔什维克党的错误就在于将民主和专政完全对立起来，片面维护专政而反对民主，从而违背了社会主义民主的广泛性原则，将无产阶级专政演变成维护一小撮人的专政，这从本质上来说就是“纯粹资产阶级意义上的专政，雅各宾派统治意义上的专政”。十月革命后，第二国际理论家们普遍对十月革命持批判和否定态度，唯有卢森堡对布尔什维克党果敢的革命行动予以盛赞，认为布尔什维克党是第二国际中唯一坚持革命立场、高举革命旗帜的政党。但是，卢森堡对布尔什维克党的治党治国策略的批判却是言辞尖锐、不留丝毫情面的。

III. The Limits of Luxemburg’s Socialist Theory

三、卢森堡社会主义理论的限度

Luxemburg’s conviction in Marxism, her adherence to the stance of socialist revolution, and her pursuit of the people’s character of socialism endowed her socialist theory with distinctive features. But in Luxemburg’s era, neither the practice of socialist revolution nor the cause of socialist construction had been fully unfolded; history did not provide sufficient empirical material to support Luxemburg’s theoretical construction. Therefore, the limitations of Luxemburg’s socialist theory were inevitable. An examination of the limits of Luxemburg’s socialist theory is conducive to correctly understanding the potential of contemporary capitalist development and the trends of the contemporary socialist movement.

卢森堡对马克思主义的确信、对社会主义革命立场的坚守、对社会主义人民性的追求，使得卢森堡的社会主义理论体现出鲜明的特质。但在卢森堡的时代，无论是社会主义革命实践还是社会主义建设事业都没有充分展开，历史没有提供足够的经验材料以支撑卢森堡的理论构建，因此，卢森堡社会主义理论的局限性是不可避免的。对卢森堡社会主义理论限度的考察，有利于正确认识当代资本主义发展的潜力和当代社会主义运动发展的趋势。

1. The Abandonment of Marx’s Schema and the Critique of the Paradox of Modern Capitalism

1.对马克思图式的抛弃与对现代资本主义悖论的批判

Compared with Marx’s era, the capitalist world system at the beginning of the 20th century had undergone tremendous changes. Luxemburg pointed out that, in the face of new conditions in capitalist development, to develop Marxism and enhance its explanatory power over reality, it was first necessary to “abandon Marx’s erroneous premises.” In Luxemburg’s view, “Marx’s erroneous premises” were the theoretical assumption of a purely capitalist mode of production in Marx’s schema of capital accumulation. It was precisely this theoretical assumption that caused Marx’s schema to lose its explanatory and critical power for the imperialist era. Only by establishing a new schema of “the constant interaction of capitalist production with a non-capitalist environment” and using it to examine the process of capital accumulation under the new conditions could the new problems of capitalism be elucidated from their economic roots. This is precisely the logical starting point of Luxemburg’s theory of capital accumulation. Under Luxemburg’s schema of capital accumulation, capitalism is explained, in the temporal dimension, as the history of changes in the conditions of capital accumulation, and, in the spatial dimension, as the global expansion of capitalism centered on Western Europe. Luxemburg also emphasized that her abandonment of Marx’s schema of capital accumulation was not a betrayal of Marxism. Starting from Marx’s viewpoint, she provided theoretical explanations for the contradictions among capitalist countries in the imperialist era, the contradictions between Eastern and Western countries, and the diverse forms of development of the socialist movement, from the perspective of “economic roots and historical inevitability.” This was an elaboration of Marx’s critical theory of modern capitalism under the new conditions.

与马克思所处的时代相比，20世纪初的资本主义世界体系发生了巨大变化。卢森堡指出，面对资本主义发展的新情况，要发展马克思主义，增强马克思主义对现实的解释力，首先要“抛弃马克思的错误前提”。在卢森堡看来，“马克思的错误前提”就是马克思的资本积累图式中纯粹资本主义生产方式的理论假设。正是这一理论假设使得马克思的图式失去了对帝国主义时代的解释力和批判力。只有建立一个新的“资本主义生产同一个非资本主义环境不断相互作用”的图式，并以此考察新形势下的资本积累进程，才能从经济根源上阐明资本主义出现的新问题。卢森堡的资本积累论的逻辑起点正在于此。在卢森堡的资本积累图式下，资本主义从时间维度上被解释为资本积累条件的变迁史，从空间维度上被看作是以西欧为中心的资本主义的全球扩张。卢森堡同时强调，她对马克思资本积累图式的抛弃，并不是背叛马克思主义。她从马克思的观点出发，从“经济根源与历史必然性”角度对帝国主义时代资本主义国家之间的矛盾、东西方国家之间的矛盾和社会主义运动多种形式的发展提供理论解释，是在新的形势下对马克思主义的现代资本主义批判理论的阐发。

However, Luxemburg’s erroneous interpretation of Marx’s schema of capital accumulation led her into a paradox when criticizing modern capitalism. Marx’s schema of capital accumulation, using the method of scientific abstraction, theoretically elucidates the logic of the unfolding of the basic contradiction of capitalism—the contradiction between socialized production and capitalist private appropriation—at the level of social reproduction, thereby revealing that capitalism is a process of self-negation and self-collapse. The relationship between Marx’s schema and capital accumulation in the imperialist era is that of the general and the particular, the abstract and the concrete, theory and practice, application and development. Luxemburg believed that Marx’s schema of capital accumulation was only applicable to the early stage of capitalist development, not to the imperialist stage, and that it had to be abandoned. This caused her to fall into a paradox when criticizing modern capitalism. On the one hand, Luxemburg acknowledged that new conditions had emerged in capitalist development and emphasized that Marxism must be developed to theoretically explain these new conditions. On the other hand, she argued that all new conditions and problems of imperialism were of no great consequence, being merely manifestations of the inherent nature of capital accumulation. The motives for militarism and colonial policies among the imperialist powers in the imperialist era, the outbreak of world wars, the sharp contradictions between backward Eastern nations and the imperialist powers, and the historical inevitability of socialist revolution could all be explained from the general logic of capital accumulation. In view of this, Luxemburg repeatedly stressed that one should not be misled by “a dazzling array of imperialist phenomena” but must “seek the precise economic laws behind these phenomena” and “the true roots.” Such a narrative approach made Luxemburg’s exposition of the characteristics of the imperialist era appear overly simplistic, lacking rich and concrete analysis.

然而，卢森堡对马克思资本积累图式的错误解读导致她在批判现代资本主义时陷入了悖论。马克思资本积累图式运用科学抽象的方法，从学理上阐明资本主义基本矛盾即生产的社会化和资本主义私人占有之间的矛盾在社会再生产层面展开的逻辑，进而揭示资本主义是一个自我否定、自我崩溃的过程。马克思的图式和帝国主义时代资本积累之间的关系是一般和特殊、抽象和具体、理论和实际、运用和发展。卢森堡认为马克思的资本积累图式只适用于资本主义发展初期，不适用于帝国主义阶段，必须将其加以抛弃，这样致使她在批判现代资本主义时陷入悖论。一方面，卢森堡承认资本主义发展出现了新情况，强调必须发展马克思主义才能对这些新情况进行理论阐释；另一方面，她又认为，帝国主义所有的新情况和新问题均无关宏旨，只不过是与生俱来的资本积累本性的体现。帝国主义时代资本主义列强实行军国主义和殖民政策的动因、世界战争的爆发、东方落后民族与资本主义列强之间的尖锐矛盾、社会主义革命的历史必然性均可以从资本积累的一般逻辑加以说明。鉴于此，卢森堡反复强调不要为“一大堆五光十色的帝国主义现象”所迷惑，必须要“寻找这些现象背后的精确的经济规律”和“真正的根源”。这样的叙事方式，使得卢森堡对帝国主义时代特征的阐述显得过于单一，缺乏丰富、具体的分析。

2. The Narrative Mode of Western Centrism and the Alienation from the World-Historical Method

2.西方中心主义的叙事方式与世界历史方法论的疏离

The theory of world history was proposed by Marx. Marx pointed out that, in the process of opening up markets, the Western European bourgeoisie constantly broke down all “fixed, ossified” relations, compelling all nations, including the most barbarian ones, to “adopt the bourgeois mode of production,” “making barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on civilized ones, making peasant nations dependent on bourgeois nations, making the East dependent on the West.” Thus, national limitations and one-sidedness were replaced by mutual intercourse among nations, and the bourgeoisie “created a world after its own image.” Taking the development of Western European capitalism as both the historical and logical starting point, Marx elucidated the objective inevitability of the arrival of the capitalist world-historical epoch and the reality of the socialist world-historical epoch. Although Marx’s theory of world history adopted a “Western-centric” narrative mode, it can by no means be said that Marx constructed a “Western” paradigm of world history. He opposed turning the Western European model of capitalist development “into a historical-philosophical theory of the general path of development.” Applying Marx’s world-historical method to the reality of the imperialist era requires the following two points: first, to place the imperialist stage within the overall process of the world-historical epoch, correctly positioning the historical status and developmental trends of imperialism; second, to extract the essence of imperialism from its economic roots, grasp the partial qualitative changes in the imperialist stage, and thereby identify the real forces capable of breaking the old imperialist world.

世界历史理论是马克思提出的。马克思指出，西欧资产阶级在开拓市场的过程中，不断打破一切“固定的僵化的”关系，迫使一切民族包括最野蛮的民族都“采用资产阶级的生产方式”，“使未开化和半开化的国家从属于文明的国家，使农民的民族从属于资产阶级的民族，使东方从属于西方”，于是民族的局限性和片面性被各民族的相互往来所替代，资产阶级“按照自己的面貌为自己创造出一个世界”。马克思以西欧资本主义的发展为历史起点和逻辑起点，阐明了资本主义世界历史时代到来的客观必然性及社会主义世界历史时代的现实性。马克思的世界历史理论，虽然采取了“西方中心”的叙事方式，但决不能说马克思构建了世界历史的“西方”范式。他反对将西欧资本主义发展模式“彻底变成一般发展道路的历史哲学理论”。将马克思的世界历史方法论运用于帝国主义时代的实际，必须做到以下两点：其一，将帝国主义阶段放到世界历史时代的总体进程中，正确定位帝国主义的历史地位和发展趋势；其二，从经济根源中提炼出帝国主义的本质，把握帝国主义阶段的局部质变，从而找出打破帝国主义旧世界的现实力量。

Although Luxemburg inherited Marx’s narrative mode of “Western capitalist centrality,” she neglected Marx’s methodology of world history, so that her theory bears an obvious defect of “Western centrism.” Although Luxemburg correctly explained the roots of the brutal exploitation and oppression inflicted by capitalist countries on economically and culturally backward countries, and elucidated the roots of conflicts and contradictions among capitalist powers in the era of imperialism and the nature of imperialist wars, and although she herself paid sufficient attention and gave moral support to the resistance struggles of backward peoples, she was nonetheless unable to recognize theoretically that backward peoples could, in the struggle against the old capitalist world, transform themselves from a passive into an active force and become an important vital strength in the world socialist movement. In Luxemburg’s view, the proletariat in backward Eastern countries was small in number, and the proletarian movement could not yet provide sufficiently rich material to trigger the proletariat’s subjective consciousness; the proletariat and the broad masses in Eastern countries always occupied a subordinate position in Luxemburg’s field of vision. Therefore, even though Luxemburg had already seen that the Russian Revolution possessed characteristics different from those of the West European revolutions, and pointed out that the Russian bourgeoisie had degenerated into a backward class incapable of leading the Russian bourgeois revolution, and that the Russian proletariat could become the subject of the revolution, thereby carrying out in Russia, a country that had not experienced a bourgeois revolution, “an unprecedentedly pure proletarian revolution,” regrettably Luxemburg’s vision stopped there.

卢森堡虽然承袭了马克思“西方资本主义中心”的叙事方式，但却忽视了马克思的世界历史方法论，使得她的理论带有明显的“西方中心主义”缺陷。尽管卢森堡正确解释了资本主义国家对经济文化落后国家进行残酷剥削和压迫的根源，阐明了帝国主义时代资本主义列强之间矛盾冲突的根源和帝国主义战争的性质，她本人对落后民族的反抗斗争也给予了足够的关注和道义上的支持，可她却无法从理论上认识到落后民族在反抗资本主义旧世界的斗争中可以化被动为主动，成为世界社会主义运动中一支重要的有生力量。在卢森堡看来，东方落后国家无产阶级人数少，无产阶级运动尚不能提供足够丰富的材料触发无产阶级的主体意识，东方国家无产阶级和广大人民在卢森堡的视野中始终处于从属地位。因此，即使卢森堡已然看到俄国革命有着与西欧革命不同的特征，指出俄国资产阶级已经堕落为落后的阶级，无力领导俄国资产阶级革命。俄国无产阶级可以成为革命的主体，从而在俄国这样一个没有经历资产阶级革命的国家来“一次空前纯正的无产阶级革命”，但遗憾的是卢森堡的视野止步于此。

Just as Luxemburg criticized Bernstein for wearing “English spectacles” to look at German problems, she herself wore “West European spectacles” to look at Russian problems. Luxemburg used the experience of the Western proletariat’s struggle as a reference to argue the relationship among the Russian party, revolution, and socialism. She was unable to realize that in a country like Russia, which lacked democratic traditions, without a strong and unified core, without strict organizational discipline and political discipline, the Bolshevik Party could not survive, and the Russian Revolution could not, under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party, achieve the great accomplishment of opening a new epoch in human history. She believed that the role of the Russian Revolution was merely to ignite the revolutionary fire of the Western European proletariat, thereby greatly underestimating the historical significance of the Russian Revolution. It was precisely from the link that Luxemburg overlooked that Lenin set out to demonstrate the possibility and inevitability that the people of economically and culturally backward countries, under the leadership of a proletarian party, could combine the productive-force determinacy of historical development with the revolutionary initiative generated by facing severe oppression, transform themselves from passive into active, and become the dominant force in the world socialist revolution. Lenin believed that at a time when capitalist development and the workers’ movement were just beginning, Russia already possessed a mature Bolshevik Party wielding Marxist theory, and this was qualitatively different from the situation in Western Europe. A revolutionary organization with unified thought and strict organization, leading the workers’ movement from above, was the key to the success of the proletarian revolutionary cause. Spontaneous movements cannot produce revolutionary consciousness; revolutionary consciousness must be “injected” into the movement from outside the movement by the Social Democratic Party. A completely spontaneous mass movement divorced from the guidance of the proletarian party will only be exploited by the bourgeoisie and deviate from the socialist track. It is precisely in this sense that “without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.” Lenin pointed out that in the era of imperialism, the Western powers used the super-profits extracted from colonial countries to foster a labor aristocracy stratum, which betrayed the revolutionary spirit of Marxism and prompted the European socialist movement as a whole to turn toward reformism. Meanwhile, the people of the backward countries, who constitute the vast majority of the world’s population, were increasingly uniting and, under the leadership of Marxist parties, forming a powerful dominant force to smash the old imperialist world and build a new socialist world. Clearly, the innovative force and historical influence of Leninism far surpass what Luxemburg’s theory can match. It must be emphasized that, regardless of Luxemburg’s position and original intentions, at the critical moment of the Russian Revolution and the Civil War, Luxemburg’s criticisms of the Bolsheviks not only were detrimental to the unity of thought and organization of the Russian party but also had a negative impact on the cause of socialist construction in Russia, which was advancing resolutely amid extreme difficulties. Therefore, Lenin’s criticism of her was not only necessary but also of great theoretical and practical significance.

正如卢森堡批评伯恩施坦戴着“英国的眼镜”看德国问题，她自己却戴着“西欧的眼镜”看俄国问题。卢森堡以西方无产阶级的斗争经验作为参照物论证俄国政党、革命和社会主义的关系，她无法意识到在俄国这样一个缺乏民主传统的国家里，如果没有坚强而统一的核心、没有严格的组织纪律和政治规训，布尔什维克党就不可能生存，俄国革命也就不可能在布尔什维克党的引领下取得开辟人类历史新纪元的伟大成就。她认为俄国革命的作用仅在于点燃西欧无产阶级的革命烈火，以至于远远低估了俄国革命的历史意义。列宁正是从卢森堡所忽视的环节出发，论证了经济文化落后国家人民在无产阶级政党的领导下，将历史发展的生产力决定性和面对深重压迫所产生的革命能动性结合起来，化被动为主动，成为世界社会主义革命的主导力量的可能性和必然性。列宁认为，在资本主义发展和工人运动刚刚起步的时候，俄国却有了手握马克思主义理论的成熟的布尔什维克党，这一点与西欧相比具有质的不同。一个思想统一、组织严密的革命家组织对工人运动的自上而下的引领，是无产阶级革命事业取得成功的关键。自发的运动不能产生革命意识，革命意识必须通过社会民主党从运动之外“灌输”到运动中去。脱离了无产阶级政党指导完全自发的群众运动，只会被资产阶级所利用而背离社会主义轨道。正是从这个意义上来说，“没有革命的理论，就不会有革命的运动”。列宁指出，在帝国主义时代，西欧列强通过从殖民地国家获得的超额利润豢养了工人贵族阶层，这个阶层背叛了马克思主义的革命精神，促使欧洲社会主义运动整体转向了改良主义。而占世界人口绝大多数的落后国家的人民却日益联合起来，在马克思主义政党的引领下形成了强大的打碎帝国主义旧世界、建设社会主义新世界的主导力量。显然，列宁主义的创新力度和历史影响力远非卢森堡的理论所能比拟。需要强调的是，不管卢森堡的立场和初衷如何，在俄国革命和国内战争的危急时刻，卢森堡批评布尔什维克的言论，不但不利于俄国党的思想统一和组织统一，对于在极端困难中坚毅前进的俄国社会主义建设事业来说，也会产生负面影响。所以，列宁对她的批评，不但是必要的而且具有重要的理论和现实意义。

3. The theoretical critique of revisionism is divorced from the real foundation of the workers’ movement

3.对修正主义的理论批判脱离工人运动的现实基础

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Bernstein, using the pretext of new changes in capitalism, openly questioned “whether and how Marxism is effective.” He advocated replacing historical materialism with idealist conceptions of history, and replacing revolution with social reform, thereby launching a comprehensive “revision” of the Marxist theoretical system. In Bernstein’s view, the erroneous root of Marx’s conception of history lay in regarding history as a process governed by “iron laws” determined by “historical necessity and economic roots,” such that starting from the economic roots of society would once and for all master history. However, the development of modern society already depended very little on the level of economic development; ideological and ethical factors played an increasingly large role in social development. When examining historical questions, one must pay attention to the role of ideological factors in historical development, especially the influence of factors such as the legal and moral concepts, religious traditions, and geographical environment of an era. In 1899, Rosa Luxemburg wrote the book *Social Reform or Revolution*, sounding the clarion call for the Second International’s critique of Bernsteinism, and also beginning her own theoretical career. The critique of Bernstein’s revisionism was always an important dimension of Luxemburg’s theoretical construction. Luxemburg deeply understood the position of historical materialism within the Marxist theoretical system. She said that Marxism was like “a firmly bonded building,” and historical materialism was its foundation. Bernstein’s attack on historical materialism aimed to “destroy the entire system from the topmost layer to the base.” Following this line of reasoning, Luxemburg believed it was necessary to defend the position of historical materialism, exposing and criticizing Bernstein’s sinister intention to replace historical materialism with idealist conceptions of history. Luxemburg attributed the cause of the revisionist conception of history to the bureaucratism arising from the social democratic leaders’ prolonged separation from the masses. However, quite the contrary, the reformist trend within the European workers’ movement did not come from the upper echelons of the social democratic parties, but from within the workers’ movement itself. Since the Paris Commune, Western European capitalism had been in a period of peaceful development; legal parliamentary struggle was the main form of the working class’s daily political practice, which led the working class to develop a sense of identification with the existing democratic political system of capitalism, and reformist sentiments increasingly grew. But Luxemburg did not realize this. She was convinced that capitalist development had entered its final period, and particularly emphasized the direct confrontation of the Western European working class with the bourgeoisie, believing that the proletariat could continuously raise its revolutionary consciousness through direct confrontational activities and lay the foundation for launching a socialist revolution. Therefore, Luxemburg opposed Bernstein’s reformism and also opposed Kautsky’s “strategy of attrition,” believing that only continuous direct confrontational activities could awaken the working class’s conscious awareness and ultimately achieve socialism. But in fact, although revisionism was theoretically crude, it had the reality of a powerful workers’ movement as its support. The socialist revolutionary theory in the social democratic party programs gradually lost its mass base because it was divorced from the reality of the workers’ movement. The left-wing theorists of the social democratic parties, including Luxemburg, paid no attention whatsoever to these circumstances. They one-sidedly emphasized the importance of historical materialism for Marxism in theory, exposing revisionism’s theoretical violation of Marxism, but neglected the influence of long-term legal struggle practice on the development of Marxist theory, and were unable to answer the question of the connecting link or the timing of transformation between the working class’s daily legal struggles and the ultimate goal of socialist revolution under a mature capitalist democratic political system. Therefore, although Luxemburg’s critique of Bernstein’s revisionism was incisive in theory, it ultimately became increasingly isolated because it was divorced from the actual conditions of the workers’ movement.

19世纪末20世纪初，伯恩施坦借口资本主义发生的新变化，公然对马克思主义“是否有效和怎样有效这一问题”提出质疑。他主张用唯心史观代替唯物史观，用社会改良代替革命，进而展开了对马克思主义理论体系的全面“修正”。在伯恩施坦看来，马克思的历史观的谬误根源在于，将历史看作是由“历史必然性和经济根源”决定的“铁的规律”支配下的过程，只要从社会的经济根源出发就能一劳永逸地掌握历史。然而，现代社会的发展对于经济发展水平的依赖程度已经非常小，意识形态和伦理因素对于社会发展的作用越来越大。在考察历史问题时，必须重视意识形态因素对历史发展的作用，尤其应该重视一个时代的法权和道德观念、宗教传统和地理环境等方面因素对历史时代的影响。1899年，罗莎·卢森堡撰写了《社会改良还是社会革命》一书，吹响了第二国际批判伯恩施坦主义的号角，也开启了自己的理论生涯。对伯恩施坦修正主义的批判，始终是卢森堡理论创建的重要维度。卢森堡深知历史唯物主义在马克思主义理论体系中的地位，她说，马克思主义就如同“一个牢固结合的建筑物”，历史唯物主义是其根基。伯恩施坦对历史唯物主义的攻击，目的就是要将马克思主义“整个体系从最上层到基础统统毁掉”。顺着这个理路，卢森堡认为必须捍卫历史唯物主义的地位，揭露并批判伯恩施坦用唯心史观代替唯物史观的险恶用心。卢森堡将修正主义历史观产生的原因归结为社会民主党的领袖们因长期脱离群众而产生的官僚主义。然而，恰恰相反，欧洲工人运动中的改良主义思潮，不是来自于社会民主党的上层，而是来自于工人运动之中。自从巴黎公社以后，西欧资本主义处于和平发展时期，合法的议会斗争是工人阶级日常政治实践的主要形式，这使得工人阶级对资本主义现行民主政治制度产生了认同感，改良主义情绪日益滋生。但卢森堡没有意识到这一点，她确信资本主义发展已经进入了最后时期，并特别强调西欧工人阶级同资产阶级进行直接对抗，认为无产阶级通过直接的对抗性的活动能不断提升革命意识并为发动社会主义革命奠定基础。所以，卢森堡反对伯恩施坦的改良主义，也反对考茨基的“疲劳战略”，认为唯有不断的直接的对抗活动才能唤醒工人阶级的自觉意识，并最终实现社会主义。但事实上，修正主义在理论上虽然粗浅却有着强大的工人运动的现实作为依托。社会民主党纲领中的社会主义革命理论因逐步脱离工人运动的实际而失去群众基础。对于这些情况，包括卢森堡在内的社会民主党的左翼理论家们完全没有予以关注和重视。他们片面地从理论上强调唯物史观之于马克思主义的重要意义，揭露修正主义在学理上对马克思主义的违背，却忽视了长期以来合法斗争实践对马克思主义理论发展的影响，无法解答在圆熟的资本主义民主政治制度下，工人阶级日常的合法斗争与社会主义革命的最终目标之间联系纽带或转化时机的问题。因此，卢森堡对伯恩施坦修正主义的批判，虽然在理论上鞭辟入里，但终因脱离工人运动的实际情况而越来越沦为孤独的一支。

In sum, throughout her life, Luxemburg actively participated in the workers’ movement, striving to practice the principle of the unity of theory and practice. But faced with the new situations and changes in capitalist development during the period of the Second International, and faced with the major transformation of the world political and economic order at the beginning of the 20th century, Luxemburg one-sidedly emphasized “general” economic roots in theory, directing all research on new situations toward the general logic of capital accumulation, ignoring or even denying the particularity of capitalist development during the imperialist period, causing her theory to remain too abstract and confined to the debates of Second International theorists. Furthermore, she opposed reformism and revisionism in the West, but did not delve into the reality of the workers’ movement to explore the roots of reformism, nor did she identify the social basis of reformism, and thus could not defeat reformism and revisionism. She criticized the theories and strategies of the Russian Bolshevik Party for governing the Party and the state, but could not recognize that the principles she advocated were divorced from Russia’s national conditions and were simply unrealizable. Therefore, even though Luxemburg’s theory contained no shortage of brilliant ideas, and some of her judgments still sparkle with the light of wisdom today, it ultimately limited the influence of her theory because it was divorced from the reality of the socialist movements in both the East and the West.

总之，在卢森堡的一生中，她积极参加工人运动，力图践行理论与实践相统一的原则，但面对第二国际时期资本主义发展的新情况和新变化，面对20世纪初世界政治经济秩序的重大变局，卢森堡在理论上片面强调“一般性”经济根源，将一切新情况的研究都引向资本积累的一般逻辑，忽视甚至否认帝国主义时期资本主义发展的特殊性，导致她的理论因过于抽象而只能停留在第二国际理论家的争论中。此外，她在西方反对改良主义和修正主义，却没有深入到工人运动的实际中探寻改良主义产生的根源，也没有找出改良主义产生的社会基础，因而不能战胜改良主义和修正主义。她批评俄国布尔什维克党的治党治国理论和策略，却不能认识到她所主张的原则脱离了俄国国情而根本无法实现。因此，即便卢森堡的理论中不乏天才的构想，一些论断至今依然闪烁着智慧的火花，但终因脱离东西方社会主义运动的现实而限制了理论的影响力。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心