Reform or Revolution

By: Rosa Luxemburg

Narrated by: Anne Makoto

Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Reform or Revolution, also titled Social Reform or Revolution?, is an 1899 pamphlet by Polish-German Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg, in which she argues that trade unions, reformist political parties, and the expansion of social democracy could not create a socialist society as Eduard Bernstein, among others, argued. She contends from a historical materialist perspective that capitalism is economically unsustainable and will eventually collapse and that a revolution is necessary to transform capitalism into socialism. The pamphlet was influential in revolutionary socialist circles and an important precursor to left communist theory.

Public Domain (P)2020 Museum Audiobooks

great look on today from the past

it's a great breakdown on how revisionist try to distort on what should be done today. a great analysis on what to lookout for when talking with liberals on progressive changes that are needed.

Not a terrible reading

Reform or revolution is essential reading. However, the reader makes several errors like reading "dialectical" and "dialetic" and "trasnitory" as "transistory" repeatedly.

Good book, funny performance

The later chapters of the book really get into the meat of what's wrong with the reform approach, and lay it out so clearly and simply why it won't work. Highly recommended read.

The narrator though, they're good and loved the whiny voice they did for the comments of the liberals. However they do have some pronunciation issues: "dialetical" instead of "dialectical" was common throughout, with "transistory" instead of "transitory" and "secretarian" instead of "sectarian" being quite funny. :)

Years old arguments put to bed.

Rosa attacks with grace many of the claims still perpetuated today about the social function of trade unions and the limitations of co-op activity.

Ethered

I'll explain this book in rap terms. Luxembourg is Nas, Bernstein is Jay-Z, and this whole book is Ether. I don't think that such a short book has had such a big impact in my political outlook.

Underwhelming in every way.

The story was full of questionable theory and the performance was not very good either. I feel as though, for me, it was a waste of my time.

Really opaque unless you're well versed in theory

It was really difficult to follow Luxemburg's dry diction. She has the unfortunate affectation of stringing together multiple clauses all depending on each other, making it overall quite difficult to understand unless you're really closely listening. Even as a native English speaker there were several times I had to rewind because I couldn't parse the overall thought she was trying to convey through a long convoluted sentence.

It also seems as though she makes several claims that were perhaps explained or shown true in other texts that she just casually brings them up as though they're true without rigorously proving them out - which left me with more questions than when I started.

Overall, I've been really excited to read this for a long time only to be disappointed. It feels like the points made here are coming from a very dogmatic point of view as well. Like she keeps espousing the virtues of dialectics and how Bernstein is such a bastard because he's departed from the original teachings of Marx.

All in all, if you're a baby left or overall not very well versed in socialist theory (like myself), this work is going to be really hard to understand.