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Letter to Stefan Bratman-Brodowski, September 3, 1918
| Author(s) | Rosa Luxemburg |
|---|---|
| Written | 3 September 1918 |
RZBSDNG, Moscow.
Published by Feliks Tych in Internationale wissenschaftliche Korrespondenz zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeitebewegung (IWK), September 1991, II.3, p.360.
Prison in Breslau, 3.9.1918
Dear Comrade,
Your note pleased me very much. At last we are gradually beginning to communicate with each other again. When will we, God willing, speak and work with each other again?! ... I see that you also are not wholly enthusiastic about Joz[ef’s] activity.[1] However to ‘advise’ him in the current situation is rather difficult. Firstly, because he has, as one can see, already committed himself very heavily, as is apparently also the case with all our people yonder,[2]and secondly since there is no easy way.[3] Because you understand that it is somewhat disadvantageous in this way, and one must confine oneself to the bare essentials ... Incidentally, I must admit that so far I have not received a single word from Joz[ef] directly and also still not written to him. I am currently writing to all of them in detail, in fact formulating general views. At present one must, alas, constantly show consideration for the desperate situation of the whole affair over there, and that impairs the critique v[ery much]. However, as you will certainly see soon, it is impossible to remain completely silent.[4] Julek [Marchlewski] wrote to me that he is quite fully immersed in the question of food supplies, which is, of course, the most vital matter – in the short term. Neither he nor any other of our people there can change the general political course, they are swimming with the stream which others are controlling, but in reality control is in the hands of fate after the direction taken at Brest ...[5] Thank you for the presents. I am not really badly off for food, think of Leo [Jogiches] instead who needs it very badly. It seems to me that you could now get in touch with him,[6] which would certainly please him a lot. I would prefer regular news rather than food – all kinds: about the Beki, about our people and their work (what you hear about) and also about the situation in Switzerland [everything] which one cannot find out from the press. I am very interested in as lively as possible contact with what is going on and it is sometimes most difficult to get information from the (geographically) nearest sources,[7] partly because there are only a few people and they are terribly busy, but mostly because they are fools and day-dreamers (I am referring to the Germans).
On what terms are our people now with the left PPS?[8] Something surprises me: at the beginning of the war inasmuch as I spoke to Walecki,[9] it seemed to me that there were almost no differences (between us and them), I thought that the war situation would even hasten a convergence. Meanwhile comrades from Poland (or also from Russia) write to me that they have drifted apart from the Left [PPS] who are completely disorientated. What do you know about it.[?] In any case, give my greetings to Walecki.
Stand your ground, till we meet again at work! A warm handshake.
RL
It would also interest me if you could supply me with interesting items being published in Switzerland when it is convenient.
I would like to know what role Robert Grimm,[10] the Nationalrat, is playing at present. Can one still count on him? How do the Swiss (lefts like Platten & Co) view the politics of the Beki?
- ↑ In 1930 Brodowski indicated in a note that “by ‘Joz’ Rosa Luxemburg referred not just to Jozef [Dzierzynski] but to all the Polish comrades [in Russia] and the whole Bolshevik Party.”
- ↑ Rosa refers to the Polish Social Democrats who were in Russia and who had supported the revolution. They were mostly political prisoners freed by the February Revolution but cut off from Poland by the German front line. Many of them took important positions in the government, party, army and diplomacy.
- ↑ The only means of contact was through the Soviet Legation in Berlin. When Rosa Luxemburg refers to contact “in this way” she indicates that she does not feel free to speak as openly as she would wish. See Note 2 in the first letter.
- ↑ RL was working at that time on the manuscript of On the Russian Revolution. (see Rosa Luxemburg, Gesammelte Werke, Vol.4, pp.332-65.)
- ↑ In Brest-Litovsk a peace treaty dictated by the central powers was signed on 3 March 1918 by their representatives and those of the Soviet government. The treaty laid down the cession of Lithuania, Courland, Poland, Batum and Kars from Soviet Russia; the recognition of Finland and the Ukraine as independent states; the maintenance of German military government in the occupied areas until a general peace; the recognition of the peace treaty between the Central Powers and the Ukrainian Rada by Soviet Russia; the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the Ukraine, Estonia, Livonia and Finland; and a return to the diplomatic and commercial relationships established by the Russo-German Treaty of 1904. Soviet Russia lost a million square kilometres of territory and a population of 46 million, its most valuable source of grain, almost all its oil resources, 90% of its coal and 54% of its industry. When the Central Powers were defeated seven months later, Russia regained the territory. (See The Russian Tragedy in Gesammelte Werke, Vol.4, pp.385-392)
- ↑ Probably via Mathilde Jacob, RL’s secretary.
- ↑ Probably a reference to the Berlin Spartacus group comrades.
- ↑ The Left PPS originated when the PPS in Russian Poland split in 1906. The right-wing of the PPS then set up its own party under Jozef Pilsudski. Shortly before the outbreak of war fusion negotiations between the two groups were well advanced. Bratman-Brodowski led the negotiations on behalf of Social Democracy. The fusion finally came about in mid-December 1918 when both founded the Communist Party of Poland.
- ↑ Maksymilian Horwitz-Walecki (1877-1937) a key left PPS leader who discussed with RL the fusion of the two Polish Parties at Berlin in 1914 and 1915.
- ↑ Robert Grimm (1881-1958) Chairman of the Swiss Social Democracy and from 1911 a deputy in the National Assembly. During WW1 he led the International Socialist Commission in Berne (i.e. the Zimmerwald movement.)