In Zarah Sultana’s announcement of a new left party, she ended with the sentence that “In 2029, the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism”. This refers to the meteoric rise of Reform and the need for a left alternative independent of the establishment parties. A powerful call to action. However, Sultana’s message is not the origin of the phrase.
By Andy Moxley
We wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment in reference to the next general election. But the term ‘socialism or barbarism’, which we have used in our own material over the years, has a much more significant, fundamental and revolutionary meaning stretching through history.
Bloody origins
The phrase ‘socialism or barbarism’ is most associated with German Communist Party (KPD) leader and revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg, quoting co-founder of Marxism, Friedrich Engels. The full quote is “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” As can be seen, Luxemburg’s words were aimed at something much bigger and more structural than an election: the entire capitalist system.
Rosa Luxemburg put all of this forward in her 1915 Junius Pamphlet written from prison in the midst of World War I, where imperialist powers were plunging millions of workers into a mechanised slaughter of one another. This war was the epitome of the blind alley into which capitalism was leading the world. She described this as “the annihilation of civilisation” through “depopulation, desolation, degeneration – a great cemetery” – not just in reference to the war but as the new status quo of the globe.
Capitalism, which had once played a progressive historic role in the development of the productive forces, raising the standard of living and throwing off the political chains of feudalism, had now progressed to an era where it hampered, destroyed those forces, and contained the potential to throw human progress backwards in time.
The imperialists were aided in several places by the betrayal of the leadership of many so-called Marxist parties and trade unions, including in Rosa Luxemburg’s own Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who backed their own capitalists against the spirit of working-class internationalism. This was a product of their reformist outlook, which looked to tinker around the edges of the sinking capitalist ship, rather than replace the system entirely.
What Luxemburg, Engels and Socialist Alternative counterpose to this, is socialist revolution. Only the downfall of the capitalist system as a whole and the democratic economic and political rule of the working class could overcome this fate. But we will work with everyone who genuinely fights in the interests of the working class along the way, while raising our independent ideas of the necessity of revolutionary socialism.
In Britain, we have been active in the building of a new left party, alongside left-wing reformists like Zarah Sultana. We will be part of the fight for a working-class political alternative to Reform UK and Labour in the run-up to 2029 and in the elections themselves – but we also point to the urgent need for a fundamental break with the capitalist system.
Foresight over astonishment
Unfortunately, Luxemburg was vindicated in the negative sense. While there was a successful socialist revolution in Russia in 1917, its failure to spread to other countries led to the interwar period which saw the greatest economic collapse in capitalist history, the immiseration of millions, the rise of reaction in the form of fascism and eventually another great imperialist war. It was only on the basis of the unique conditions following the mass destruction of World War II that capitalism was given a brief new lease on life.
But that period is long-gone. Now we return to the same conundrum. The ruling class around the world is rearming for a period of unending conflicts and is pursuing reactionary ideological agendas including nationalism and attacks on democratic rights. Added to this now is the climate danger which is destroying the material conditions on which humanity may continue to survive or build a new world order.
However, the international working class is more numerous than it has ever been. And in keeping with the laws of history, it is fighting back. From hundreds of millions of workers on general strike against the Modi government in India to the opposition to Trump in the United States, “barbarism” is being resisted.
The key to defeating these threats for good will be a conscious revolutionary party capable of leading the struggle for power to its necessary conclusion. As Luxemburg put it: “The future of civilisation and humanity depends on whether or not the proletariat resolves manfully to throw its revolutionary broadsword into the scales.”
