[OPE-L:6928] [OPE-L:420] Lenin on Luxemburg?

Alejandro Ramos (aramos@btl.net)
Mon, 25 Jan 1999 16:45:14 -0600

1. On ope-l 419, Paul Z asks:

>Does anyone know if Lenin commented on Luxemburg's 1913 Accumulation of
>Capital or her follow-up reply to critics, published in 1921? Thanks,
>Paul

You may check Peter J. Nettl's "Rosa Luxemburg", 1966, Oxford;
specifically, the chapter called "R.L. and her conception of imperialism".
I have only a Spanish traslation of a part of this book.

Here, Nettl writes: (sorry for the quotation in Spanish, but I don't have
time to "traslate" it into English):

"Fue Lenin, que habia leido el libro [The Accumulation of Capital] en un
momento en que sus relaciones politicas con Rosa Luxemburg era muy malas,
quien arrojo la primera piedra. Sus notas criticas anotadas en los margenes
del libro indican que encontro equivocado cuando le fue posible; ellas
abundan en exclamaciones como "sin sentido" o "ridiculo". La critica
principal de Lenin era dirigida a los fundamentos: considero como un "error
basico" la tesis que sostenia que la reproduccion capitalista ampliada era
imposible en una economia cerrada, y que el capitalismo para poder
funcionar, debia fagocitar las economias precapitalistas..." in, Luxemburg
and Bujarin, "El imperialismo y la acumulacion de capital", Pasado y
Presente, Mexico, 1980, p. xxiii. (This comes from the referred book by
Nettl.)

So, Lenin commented unfavourably on "The accumulation..." but it seems that
only on the margins of the book.

2. Reading Paul's question, I recall another similar problem:

Does anyone know the whole comment on Georg von Charasoff's book by Otto
Bauer? According to Howard & King, Charasoff anticipated much of what is
known today as "Sraffian" and "Marxian Economics". Bauer considered him as
a "Physiocrat".

Alejandro Ramos