The Origin of the Problem: A General Outline of the Work

In Polish, this work was first published in 1957. Cf. Luxemburg, R. (1957) Rozwój Przemysłu w Polsce, Warsaw. In the Institute of Marx and Lenin (IML) there is a translation of this work completed already at the turn of the current century by Adolf Warski (information by Felix Tych in: Letters of Rosa Luxemburg to Leon Jogiches-Tyszko, vol. 2, Warsaw 1968, p. 388, note 7).Google Scholar

A quarter of a century later, she would write similarly about the beginning of capitalism in Russia in the 1870s and 1880s: ‘Big industry only now staged its real entry, fostered by the period of high protective tariffs. In particular, the introduction of a tariff on gold at the Western frontier in 1877 was a special landmark in the absolutist government’s new policy of forcing the growth of capitalism. “Primitive accumulation” of capital flourished splendidly in Russia, encouraged by all kinds of state subsidies, guarantees, premiums and government orders. It earned profits which would already seem legendary to the West.’ (Luxemburg, R. The Accumulation of Capital, London: Routledge Classics, 2003, p. 250).Google Scholar

Lenin, V.I. (1899) ‘The development of capitalism in Russia: The Process of the Formation of a Home Market for Large-Scale Industry’, in: The Collected Works of Vladimir Lenin, vol. 3, Moscow 1964, Progress Publishers, p. 25.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 25. A. Pashkov managed to interpret Lenin’s preface in an interesting way. Devoting a significant part of his book to a discussion of Lenin’s work, he wrote: ‘In the preface to the first edition of the book discussed, Lenin indicated the need to analyse and present the whole process of the development of capitalism in Russia, to endeavour to depict it in its entirety’. And further: ‘to elucidate the problem of the home market for Russian capitalism it was absolutely necessary to show the connection between, and interdependence of, the various aspects of the process taking place in all spheres of the social economy. Hence, despite the fact that Lenin’s objective was to analyse the issue for Russian capitalism of the formation of the domestic market, the character of this topic required him to analyse the specific process of the capitalist development in Russia in its entirety. Lenin’s grand work […] in its whole content responds directly to the task set by Lenin in the work What the Friends of People are and how they fight the Social-Democrats. The theoretical work of intelligentsia — wrote Lenin — must be directed towards the concrete study of all forms of economic antagonism in Russia, the study of their connections and successive development; they must reveal this antagonism wherever it has been concealed by political history, by the peculiarities of legal systems or by established theoretical prejudice’. Pashkov adds: ‘It is impossible to characterise the keynote of the book and its significance more precisely and clearly than Lenin himself has done in the words quoted above’ (Pashkov, A. (1961) Prace ekonomiczne Lenina z lat dziewięćdziesiątych, Warsaw, p. 382–3). Neither here nor anywhere else did Pashkov mention the limitations of the subject-matter imposed by Lenin. It is precisely this reason that allowed Lenin’s analysis to be presented as a general and comprehensive theory.Google Scholar

‘… when Poland regained her independence, there had already evolved a dual scholarly tradition of work on this period: that of apologists […] of large-scale enterprise in agriculture, trade and industry, led by wealthy Polish bourgeoisie and landowners under the Russian rule, as against the Marxist line of thought, initiated by the works of Rosa Luxemburg and J. Marchlewski. The future belonged to the latter […]’ (Kula, W. (2001) The problems and methods of economic history, Aldershot: Ashgate).Google Scholar

Luxemburg, R. (1900) ‘Social Reform or Revolution?’. In: Anderson, K.B. and Hudis, P. (eds) (2004) The Rosa Luxemburg Reader, New York: Monthly Review Press, p. 132.Google Scholar

Rosa Luxemburg, Wstęp do ekonomii politycznej, Warsaw 1958, p. 315 [Cf. Idem What is Economics? London: The Merlin Press, pp. 33–50]. The book was published by Paul Levi with his foreword as late as in 1925, entitled Einfuehrung in die Nationaloekonomie. Since then it has been repeatedly reissued. The detailed history of the book is known from Luxemburg’s letter to the publisher, sent on 28 July 1916 from the Berlin prison. The following is the full table of contents of the book: ‘1. Was ist Nationoekonomie?; 2. Die gesellschaftliche Arbeit; 3. Wirtschaftsgeschichtliches. Urkomunistische Gesellschaft; 4. Wirtschaftsgeschichtliches. Feudales Wirtschaftssystem; 5. Wirtschaftsgeschichtliches. Die mittelalterliche Stadt und das Zufthandwerk; 6. Die Warenproduktion; 7. Lohnarbeit; 8. Der Kapitalprofit; 9. Die Krise; 10. Die Tendenzen der kapitalistischen Entwieckung’. In summer 1916 only two first chapters were ready to be published. The remainder chapters remained drafts (‘In Brulion niedergeschrieben’). In Rosa Luxemburg’s papers only chapters 1, 3, 6, 7 and 10 were found. The rest of the chapters seem to have perished. Hence, the readers only received half of the planned chapters (Cf. Paul Frölich, Rosa Luxemburg, Gedanke und Tat, Paris 1939, p. 151).Google Scholar

Rosa Luxemburg’s letter to Diefenbach, written on 12 May/June 1917 in the Wronke prison. Quote in: Adler, G., Hudis, P. And Laschitza, A., (eds) (2011) The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, London: Verso, p. 409.Google Scholar

Robinson, J. (1951) ‘Introduction’. In: Luxemburg, R. (2003) The Accumulation of Capital, London: Routledge Classics, p. xxxvii.Google Scholar

Cf. Works quoted above and Bukharin, N. Der Imperialismus und die Akkumulation des Kapitals, Vienna 1926;Google Scholar

Sternberg, F. Der Imperialismus, Berlin 1926 and idem, Der Imperialismus und seine Kritiker, Berlin 1929;Google Scholar

Grossmann, H. The law of accumulation and breakdown of the capitalist system: being also a theory of crises, London: Pluto 1992;Google Scholar

Sweezy, P.M. The theory of capitalist development, New York 1942;Google Scholar

Dobb, M. ‘The Accumulation of Capital’. In: Dobb, M. On Economic Theory and Socialism: Collected Works, London 1955.Google Scholar

Robinson, J. (1951) ‘Introduction’. In: Luxemburg, R. (2003) The Accumulation of Capital, London: Routledge Classics, p. xxxiii.Google Scholar