The Russian Revolution (pamphlet)

The Russian Revolution: A Critical Appreciation (German: Die Russische Revolution. Eine kritische Würdigung) is a pamphlet written in 1918 by the Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemburg. It was written in prison while Luxemburg was serving a sentence in Breslau, Germany, and published posthumously in 1922 by her former comrade Paul Levi. The work is a critique of the policies of the Bolsheviks following the October Revolution, particularly their dissolution of the Russian Constituent Assembly.

The pamphlet's central argument concerns the dialectic between spontaneity and consciousness in revolutionary theory, a key point of contention between Luxemburg and Vladimir Lenin. While praising the Bolsheviks for seizing power, Luxemburg criticizes their agrarian policies, their stance on the self-determination of nations, and their suppression of democratic institutions such as the Constituent Assembly. She argues that these actions risked undermining the socialist goals of the revolution.

Upon its publication, the pamphlet became highly controversial within the international communist movement. A major debate erupted over whether Luxemburg had later changed her mind or recanted the views expressed in the text, with figures like Clara Zetkin arguing she had, while Levi used the pamphlet to criticize the direction of the Bolshevik party. The text was later influential in the Cold War as an anti-Leninist document and experienced a revival of interest among European leftists in the 1960s and 1970s seeking alternatives to Soviet Marxism.