“The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization.” – Rosa Luxemburg
Matt Willgress marks the anniversary of the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg by restating the need for socialism, to save the world from barbarism today
Engels once said that capitalist society “stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.”
Commenting on these remarks during World War One, the great socialist Rosa Luxemburg said “What does “regression into barbarism” mean to our lofty European civilization? Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. A look around us at this moment shows what the regression of bourgeois society into barbarism means. This world war is a regression into barbarism. The triumph of imperialism leads to the annihilation of civilization.”
At the start of 2025, as we look around at the climate crises, the wars in Gaza and elsewhere, the insane new nuclear arms race as part of the disastrous New Cold War which is set to escalate under Trump, and the economic situation globally, it is still the case that the choice is socialism or barbarism.
In terms of the global capitalist economic order – or perhaps that should more aptly be disorder – each year Oxfam produces a report on global inequality.
The 2024 report confirmed the world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes since 2020, while the wealth of the poorest 60 per cent – five billion people – has fallen.
If these trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade. but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.
And let’s be honest there won’t be a habitable planet if capitalism continues anywhere near that long.
Oxfam may not a socialist movement, but it does conclude without any doubt how sharply increasing billionaire wealth and rising corporate and monopoly power are interconnected. And how corporate power exploits and magnifies inequalities of gender and race, as well as economic inequality.
These are of course the conclusions Rosa Luxemburg herself made as she analysed the emergence of imperialism as a phase of capitalism. She – like Lenin, Bukharin and others – also linked it with the drive to war.
To quote Rosa again – “The high stage of world-industrial development in capitalistic production finds expression in the extraordinary technical development and destructiveness of the instruments of war.”
Today it is weapons made in the US and Britain – and still sold by the Government of Keir Starmer and David Lammy – that use technology to commit genocide in Gaza.
To return to the details of the Oxfam report, it reveals that ten of the world’s biggest corporations are worth 8.1 trillion, equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America.
And big business is set to smash annual profit records year on year. Yet the working-class worldwide are working harder and longer hours.
Oxfam themselves conclude that “This ever-widening gulf between the rich and the rest isn’t accidental, nor is it inevitable. Governments worldwide are making deliberate political choices that enable and encourage this distorted concentration of wealth,” and point to the benefit of a wealth tax on British millionaires and billionaires at a rate of between one to two per cent on net wealth above £10 million, which could generate up to £22 billion each year. But that’s just one policy to alleviate the worst elements of inequality. We though must aim for – as the future of our planet being as stake demands – much more, a complete re-organisation of society. As James Connolly famously said, “our demands most moderate are, We only want the earth.”
And as we look ahead to 2025, we can still see much to motivate us to build a fighting left here and internationally in the year ahead.
The mass movements on Palestine show us how many millions even in the imperialist heartlands have had enough of war and misery.
And polling shows remarkable things. Here in Britain, the annual YouGov survey in 2023 showed that amongst those born between 1946-64, only 4 per cent of people have a positive view of Lenin – but he was popular amongst 40% of Millennials (those born between 1981-96). And another poll published shortly afterwards by the Fraser Institute found that nearly a third of young people in Britain (18-34 year-olds) believe that “communism is the ideal economic system”.
And we know that socialist solutions to the crises that we put forward – such as water and energy public ownership, or wealth taxes to fund public services – have massive popular support that goes way beyond this layer of radical younger people, often enjoying the support of the majority of the population.
We have seen so many young people hit the street for another world – whether backing the rise of Corbynism, the school climate strikers or not the mass movements for Palestine.
It is therefore more than possible that a mass anti-capitalist mood, and movements organised by the Left based around it, could emerge here in the next period.
And of course, the struggle is international which can also give us hope. In Latin America mass movements are not only rising against US domination and neo-liberalism, but winning and making real changes for the better. And the uprisings in Africa against French neo-colonialism continue.
I am then optimistic and enthusiastic about the struggle ahead.
To again quote Rosa Luxemburg, from one her last letters, to finish – ‘Enthusiasm combined with critical thought, ‘what more could we want of ourselves!” That is exactly the attitude we need to build movements for real change and a socialist future.
- Matt Willgress will be speaking at the Socialism or Barbarism in-person day-school in London on Saturday March 29, alongside MPs Richard Burgon, Ian Byrne and John McDonnell, campaigner Jess Barnard, socialist economist Michael Roberts and campaigns such as PSC, CND and Stand up to Racism. Register and info here.
- Today (January 15) marks the anniversary of Rosa Luxemburg’s assassination. You can watch our event on the relevancy of her ideas for the struggle today here and read her works on the Marx Internet Archive here.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
