Two Humanist Philosophies

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Rosa Luxembourg was the focus of a panel discussion entitled
“Women in Revolution and the Ways of Political Power” sponsored
by the History Department of the University of Pennsylvania last
March. Two very interesting and distinct presentations were given by
Raya Dunayevskaya, writer and Marxist—Humanist, and Jane
Cooper, poet at Sarah Lawrence College. In the course of the
discussion, | was brought to reflect on 1) the life and work of
Luxembourg as a courageous woman revolutionary and 2) the
importance of relating (somehow) the two humanist philosophies of
Marxism and Feminism. In this piece, with the help of friends on
“Common Speaking” staff, 1 bring together some of those
reflections.

Luxembourg was the great theoretician of the German Revolution
of 1919. She was the intellectual leader of the movement, whose
monumental contributions to the struggle against imperialism
marked her as a most important (woman) thinker. The founder of the
social democratic party in Germany, Luxembourg led debates with
and against Karl Kautsky, Lenin and Trotsky. Her most original and
theoretical work, Accumulation of Capital, demonstrates her fusion
of theory with practice. For this, she was brutally murdered by the
German army, who thrashed her body, bashed in her head, and
threw her bloody corpse down into the river.

How do we interpret the life and work of such a person?

Dunayevskaya views Luxembourg as perhaps the most important
figure in the history of women in revolution. Founder of Marxist—
Humanism in the United States, author of several books (including a
comprehensive biography on Luxembourg) and editor of a small
news publication, News & Letters, Dunayevskaya is no feminist. (She
has been quoted as saying “Marx was the greatest feminist.”) But we
should not ignore her writings on women, collected in a pamphlet
called “Women as Reason and as Force of Revolution,” in whichshe
traces some of the revolutionary roots of our women’s movement.
These she finds in the struggles of Sojourner Truth and the Black

women fighting slavery, in the organization of the first Women’s |

Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y.,(1848), in the histories of

Germany, France, Russia, Poland, Iran, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, and !
Mozambique. Although Dunayevskaya fails to include in her essays ;

any explicit discussion of patriarchy as a system of male domination,
she recognizes the shining power of women. “We will become a
witness to Women’s Creativity as a Liberating Force.”

Jane Cooper is a poet who has written a piece which expresses her |
personal reaction to Luxembourg’s “Letters to Sophie From Prison.” i
After reading two short poems to give the listeners a feel for her |
voice and for her words, Cooper read this one aloud. Not politicalin |

the sense of carrying a prophetic or moral message, the poem madea
connection between Luxembourg and her time and place, and usin

America in 1983. That link was made via the ability of Cooper as an |
artist and writer to see Luxembourg as a human being who affirmed |

in her lifetime the humanity of others.

On one level, Cooper’s poetry and Luxembourg’s “Letters” could
be compared/contrasted to the work of well—known feminist
writers, e.g. Adrienne Rich, inasmuch as writings by women on
women, or writings of women to one another, can be considered
“feminine” or “female.” In the discussion, an English professor
made a comment to this effect. She did not, however, as one might
expect from an academic, suggest the intriguing problem of
characterizing the feminine text as distinct from its author, a topic |
have found interesting.

To deal only on this level of appearances—“These writers are,
significant because they are all the same sex”—is to have grasped:
Feminism in its most superficial form. This form is essentially limited’
to an assertion of the rights of women to be recognized as equal to}
men, (particularly in the labor market and in the electoral—
representational process.) As such it is an extension of the
ideology of individualism, running parallel to the ideology of
Patriarchy.

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Feminism has a much more profound and serious message, from
which Marxists and non—Marxists alike can derive inspiration for
their humanist activities. Feminism requires the recognition that
Luxembourg, Cooper and Dunayevskaya are outstanding for the
substance and content of their work and writings. Feminism calls for
a reaffirmation of the wholeness of the human experience as against
the crippling and fragmentary forces in our society. Way beyond the
reforming of sexist institutions and practices (still an incompleted
project!), artists and writers dream of the day when we will see that
Glorious Age, when through action and social change, through our
creativity derived from experience, we can pursue noble lives, and
recognize the right of all humanity to do so.

Karin Aguilar-San Juan

  
 
 
   
 
  
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 

   

Elegy for Donna (1961— __)
(and thinking of others

guatemala, el salvador, words

stream down your cheeks

stream from your lips

rise hot to the night’s stars

and you must study, study,

reading man’s bright words,

bright carnage,

learning man’s bright markings:
colors of the predator.

and you must study, study,

until your eyes are red

until your cheeks are cold

until your lips, like pomegranate,

split and spill

until your lips scar the white

of old words and stop,

numb.

to know the words is not enough. go
then, know nicaragua, el
salvador, use your woman’s
skills to your advantage.
move silent in the night,
exude

no heat
exude

no tears
exude
with care these words,
this fetich
flavored with your blood.

1 write these words against

all atrocity, against
forebodings of your death.

Shoshana T. Daniel