Rosa Redux: A Reply to David Camfield and Alan Johnson

Abstract

Among the assorted pleasures of writing for New Politics is the knowledge that so much of its audience actually reads the articles and intellectually engages them. But I found it particularly flattering when I received two responses to “Red Dreams and the New Millennium: Notes on the Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg,” originally delivered as a speech to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin, which appeared in the last issue. Admittedly, I was somewhat startled that the first response by David Camfield was roughly the same length as my short article while the second, by Alan Johnson, was even longer. Both are clearly serious in their intentions, however, and I would like to address their arguments in a sequential fashion. They overlap at given points, which may make for a bit of redundancy on my part, but proceeding in this way will allow me to deal better with the points they make and the logic they employ. Noteworthy about these replies is their political character, their lack of invective, and the conviction with which they argue their theoretical perspectives. It’s safe to say that we all stand on the left side of the barricades. But there are also some real disagreements along with some mistaken interpretations of both my work and, in my opinion, issues pertaining to the socialist tradition. This makes a somewhat lengthy political response necessary. I hope the reader will bear with me.