Roman Rosdolsky

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Roman Rosdolsky around 1960 in the USA
Wife Emily Rosdolsky in conversation with Fritz Keller

Roman Rosdolsky ( Ukrainian Роман Осипович Роздольський Roman Ossypowytsch Rosdolskyj , scientific. Transliteration Roman Osipovic Rozdol's'kij ; Polish Roman Rózdolski ; Russian Роман Осипович Роздольский * 19th July 1898 in Lemberg , Austria-Hungary ; † 20th October 1967 in Detroit ), Doctor of Political Science (Dr. rer. Pol.), Was an old Austrian social historian , Marxist economist and political activist of Ukrainian ethnicity. Although he was never a member of a political organization in the post-war period , Rosdolsky is considered an influential representative of Trotskyism due to his political proximity to Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition . He called himself a Marxist . Rosdolsky also wrote under the pseudonyms Roman Prokopovycz , P.Suk. Tenet and WS

His main work on the history of the origins of Marx's capital had a strong influence on the neo-Marxist debate in the 1970s and was regarded within the new left as an introduction to the criticism of the political economy by Karl Marx . Shortly after its publication, it became a standard work in Marx research. In addition, Rosdolsky gained notoriety through his criticism of the positions of the Marxist classics on the nationality problem , which he in his work Friedrich Engels and the problem of peoples without history . formulated. This is a revised version of his doctoral thesis from 1929, The Problem of the Historically Without Peoples in K. Marx and Fr. Engels .

Rosdolsky was a socialist revolutionary in Galicia in his youth . In the interwar period he lived in exile in Vienna , where he was active in the Communist Party of Austria . In 1934, as a well-known leftist scientist, he had to flee from Austrofascism to Lemberg, now Poland , where he led a Trotskyist group. He was also active in the resistance against National Socialism , which is why he was imprisoned for three years in 1942. He was a prisoner in the concentration camps Auschwitz , Ravensbrück and Oranienburg . In 1947 he and his wife Emily and their son Hans (1943–2013) fled the Stalinists from Austria to the USA . Roman Rosdolsky worked there as a private scholar and private teacher until his death.

Life

Youth and Political Beginnings (1898–1919)

Roman Rosdolsky was the son of Ossip Rosdolsky and Olga Rosdolsky, nee Tanczakavska. The environment of the Rosdolsky family was shaped by the awakening Ukrainian national consciousness in the 19th century . Romans birth Lemberg was the largest city of KK - crown lands Galicia . Roman's grandfathers were both Greek Catholic clergymen and thus were among the main proponents of the idea of ​​an independent Ukrainian nation. The famous poet Ivan Franko was a family friend. At that time there was officially no independent Ukrainian culture . The Ukrainian literature was banned and the Ukrainian language was mostly as a peasant dialect of Russian treated.

Romans uncle, a composer of Ukrainian music, saw himself as a supporter of the burgeoning national liberation movement . Roman's father Ossip was a well-known Ukrainian theologian and linguist as well as a teacher of ancient Greek and Latin at the grammar school in Lviv and is now considered a pioneer in the collection and research of traditional Ukrainian everyday culture . He translated classical Greek literature into Ukrainian and Ukrainian works into German. His folk song collection is now owned by the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences . Ossip Rosdolsky passed on his interest in teaching and research to his son Roman. At the same time, he was drawn into politics in his youth. At the age of 15, high school student Roman Rosdolsky joined the Ukrainian socialist movement in 1913 . The conspiratorial "Dragomanov Circle" to which Rosdolsky belonged at the time were named after the radical democratic liberal Mychajlo Drahomanow (1841–1895) and were part of the utopian-socialist to anarchist tradition of the Russian Narodniki .

His wife Emily wrote in retrospect about the political career of Roman Rosdolsky: "Rosdolsky and a group of his close school friends became acquainted with the works of Marxist authors in the organization ." The First World War finally led to a serious split in the organization. While Rosdolsky was already on her left wing at the time, a majority saw the war as an opportunity to join forces with the Central Powers to fight against tsarism and Russian oppression . Rosdolsky and his friends, on the other hand, saw themselves as internationalists and revolutionaries and based themselves on the ideas of Karl Liebknecht and Friedrich Adler .

In 1915, one year after the outbreak of war, 17-year-old Rosdolsky was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army , which further strengthened his political activism . Since 1916, together with a minority of the original members, he was instrumental in the revival of the Dragomanov circle in the form of the anti-militarist youth organization International Revolutionary Social Democratic Youth of Galicia . Together with the illegal International Revolutionary Social Democracy (IRSD), the predecessor of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia , which existed from 1915 to 1918 , it was in opposition to the official Social Democrats , which had approved the war loans . Rosdolsky and his followers were very surprised that they had not succeeded in convincing at least some of the former members of the Dragomanov circles to work in the organizations they founded. According to Emily Rosdolsky, the IRSD had several hundred members. Roman Rosdolsky was among other things editor of the 16-page newspaper Vistnyk , the central organ of the IRSD. In 1917, a year before the end of the war, he also published the magazine Klyči together with Roman Turiansky .

The IRSD newspaper was not discovered by the police until 1918. Before this could take action against the young socialists, however, the February Revolution of 1917 led to the collapse of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic . During the First World War, Rosdolsky's homeland, Galicia, was ceded by the Habsburg monarchy to the young Kingdom of Poland . This transition from one monarchy to another was opposed by commoners , peasants and workers alike. However, the republican camp of Galicia was divided: Rosdolsky participated as a revolutionary socialist alongside his comrades in the IRSD between October 1918 and the summer of 1919 in the fighting in his homeland of Eastern Galicia against the newly founded Republic of Poland . Instead, Rosdolsky and the IRSD campaigned for the establishment of the West Ukrainian People's Republic .

Founding of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia (1919–1921)

Rosdolsky was one of the founders and main theorists of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia , which emerged from the IRSD in 1919 and which worked closely with the Russian and Ukrainian Bolsheviks. While the CP of Ukraine (Bolsheviks), founded in April 1918, was formally subordinate to the CP of Russia (Bolsheviks) and thus did not form a separate section of the Communist International founded in March 1919, the CP of East Galicia initially retained its organizational independence. The national identity debate that had started in the IRSD continued. In 1923, the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia was renamed the Communist Party of Western Ukraine (KPWU or KPZU; Ukrainian : Комуністична партія Західної України), with the wing around Rosdolsky at least formally prevailing. Although Eastern Galicia was not part of the Ukrainian SSR, which was founded in January 1919, Rosdolsky and the CPWU wanted to express their demand for a common socialist state with this renaming.

The West Ukrainian People's Republic was originally ruled by the Zentralna Ukrainska Rada , the Ukrainian Central Council - a bourgeois coalition of Social Revolutionaries , Mensheviks , Social Federalists and others. The West Ukrainian People's Republic soon turned to the Bolsheviks and was briefly part of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic . Rosdolsky then positioned himself on the side of the Bolsheviks against the bourgeois Rada and its nationalism, although his position was not undisputed within the IRSD. In the controversy over the national independence of Ukraine, the IRSD magazine initially had a tendency to deny the national question , reminiscent of Rosa Luxemburg , as Emily Rosdolsky reports. This question determined Rosdolsky's later work, who took a different, more benevolent view of the matter and was less skeptical about the independence aspirations of the Ukrainian peasantry .

After the defeat of the West Ukrainian People's Republic in May 1919, Rosdolsky emigrated "with a group of his comrades to Czechoslovakia " in August , where he studied law in Prague . Looking back, he wrote about the establishment of the West Ukrainian People's Republic and the conflict between the Rada and the Bolsheviks at that time:

“As members of a 'historyless' people, with only a rudimentary upper class, we could not place our hopes on the establishment of a bourgeois Ukrainian state. On the other hand, the unsolved peasant question and the national oppression of our people created favorable ground for the rapid spread of the ideas of revolutionary socialism. "

Rosdolsky and the CPWU should ultimately prevail against the Rada. After the Rada and its leader and later head of government Symon Petljura first opposed the All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets founded on December 4, 1917 and finally against the Bolsheviks in the Russian Civil War , the Western Ukrainian People's Republic joined the Ukrainian SSR in 1920. On July 6, 1920, the provisional East Galician Soviet government was proclaimed in Ternopil in western Ukraine and on August 1, 1920 the Galician Soviet Republic was proclaimed. It was a great success for Rosdolsky and his KPWU. But on September 21, 1920, the area was occupied by Polish troops. It was not until the Second World War that Poland had to cede Galicia to the Soviet Union . In fact, western Ukraine was part of the Ukrainian SSR as early as 1944 and formally only since September 16, 1947. This short but eventful period in Ukrainian history and the Communist Party of Western Ukraine had a decisive influence on Rosdolsky's work.

Viennese emigration and left opposition (1921–1939)

In the interwar period, Rosdolsky lived largely in exile in Vienna . There he became a member of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ). From 1921 to 1924 he represented the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Western Ukraine, its foreign organization. After the takeover of East Galicia by Poland, there were differences within the KPWU about a possible affiliation with the Communist Party of Poland (KPP), which had now emerged . Rosdolsky was against such a merger of the CPWU with the CPP. Instead, he has always advocated an autonomous status for the KPWU within the KPP. His wife describes the positions in the KPWU at that time as follows:

“The supporters of the communist movement, anchored in the urban workers and intelligentsia, mostly advocated affiliation with the Communist Party of Poland and formed the faction of the 'Kaperpowcy', so named after the initials of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland. Supporters of the independence of East Galicia from Poland and a party organization independent of the Polish party was the " Wasylkiw Group". Wasylkiw was the party name of Osyp Krilyk, who, together with Rosdolsky and other later leaders of the communist movement in East Galicia, had reorganized the Drahomanow movement in 1916. "

Although Rosdolsky was already living in Vienna at the time of the conflict, he was one of the leading publicists of the Wasylkiv faction of the Ukrainian communists, also known as Wasylkivtsi. The Communist International (KI), whose statutes actually provided for only one section per country , supported the Wasylkiwzi in their demand for political and national autonomy against the merger efforts of the Kaperpowcy. This dispute was primarily about the separation of Eastern Galicia from Poland and annexation to Soviet Ukraine. Although the leadership of the AI ​​would have welcomed such a step, a compromise was reached in 1923. The Communist Party of Western Ukraine, more precisely the party organization in Eastern Galicia, Volhynia and Cholmland , became part of the Communist Workers' Party of Poland together with the Communist Party of Western Belarus . Rosdolsky was still on the Central Committee of the CPWU at the time.

A year later, in 1924, Rosdolsky advocated the party's withdrawal from the anti-Polish guerrilla movement in the border area. Rosdolsky's refusal to drop out of studies and work exclusively for the party as a “ professional revolutionary ” led to his expulsion from the party. Emily Rosdolsky suspects that this is due to his fear “of becoming materially dependent on the apparatus of the Western Ukrainian Party, with which he by no means always agreed and with whose sometimes overly 'pragmatic' attitude he was increasingly disappointed.” But Rosdolsky remained in contact with his Comrades and continued to publish for the party. When in 1925 he rejected the condemnation of Leon Trotsky and the Left Opposition in the Soviet Union , Rosdolsky again came into conflict with the party leadership of the CPP. During this time he moved closer to the Left Opposition around Trotsky. Together with the KPP, the KPWU was dissolved by the KI in 1938. At that time Rosdolsky was living in Lviv again and was the leader of an influential Trotskyist group. One reason for the dissolution of the CPP was the initially consistently internationalist orientation of the CPP and its high number of critics of the KI leadership and supporters of the left opposition in the Soviet Union . This conflict was one of the reasons for Rosdolsky's later escape from his homeland. Many members of the CPWU and the CPP fell victim to the Stalinist purges and were only in 1956 on the XX. CPSU party congress rehabilitated.

In the years 1924–1929 Rosdolsky continued his studies of law and political science with the Austro-Marxist Carl Grünberg , which he had begun in Prague, contrary to party arguments . Grünberg, later head of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research , and his former student Max Adler influenced Rosdolsky's image of Marxism in Vienna. In Max Adler's lectures, Rosdolsky, as a leading member of the communist student movement , is said to have frequently initiated explosive political discussions.

In 1926/27 there were renewed conflicts within the CPWU about its so-called “Bolshevization” after Alexander Schumsky (also Šumski or Schumskij), People's Commissar for Education in Ukraine, on the pretext of “ nationalistic deviations” because of his criticism of “ Stalin's more bureaucratic Politics with regard to national minorities ”( Max Shachtman ) was excluded from the KPU (B). The majority of the Central Committee of the KPWU supported Schumsky, and in 1929 Rosdolsky could finally be persuaded to position himself publicly on Schumsky's side in the party magazine Kultura . Rosdolsky had some substantive differences, which is why he originally did not want to comment on the matter. His public support for the "Russification tendencies in the cultural policy of Soviet Ukraine" and "for the former 'šumskist' majority of the CPWU, which had already been excluded from the KOMINTERN in 1928" , as his estate agent GR van der Ham writes in a short biography of Rosdolsky ultimately resulted in Rosdolsky's final expulsion from the Polish Communist Party of the CPP.

In Vienna Rosdolsky remained active in the KPÖ. During the demonstrations at the Vienna Justice Palace fire on July 15, 1927, he met his future wife, the 16-year-old Emily Meder . Since then, Meder and Rosdolsky have worked closely together in the KPÖ cell in Vienna's 9th district. In an interview with Fritz Keller, Emily Rosdolsky reports that “on cell evenings there were about 15 people [present; Note] were ” . The Trotskyist Rosdolsky is said to have argued for nights with supporters of Heinrich Brandler and Stalinists who were loyal to the line. 1926-1931 Rosdolsky worked in Vienna as a correspondent for the Moscow Marx-Engels Institute , where he gathered material for the archive under the direction of David Ryazanov and worked on the Marx-Engels Complete Edition (MEGA), until Stalin 1931 the discontinuation of the MEGA decided.

In the mid-1930s, Rosdolsky was one of the founders of Trotskyism in western Ukraine. He felt lifelong connected to the ideas of Trotsky, but was never a member of the Fourth International . Rosdolsky's criticism of the “Russification” of Ukraine was a result of his experiences in his homeland in the early 1920s. On this question, Rosdolsky's position coincided with that of Trotsky, who also criticized the “oppressive Russification methods of the cities” - especially in Ukraine. "It will not be a little time" - so Trotsky in 1930 - "even under the rule of the Bolsheviks, until the Soviets of the peripheral areas learned to speak the language of the village."

As a member of a peasant nation oppressed by the state of Poland , Rosdolsky's primary interest was a Marxist analysis of the nationality problem and the history of the peasantry. He dealt with this question during his studies and as part of his research work at the Marx-Engels Institute. In 1929 he received his doctorate with the thesis The Problem of the Historically Without Peoples under K. Marx and Fr. Engels under the professors Hans Kelsen and Dr. A. Menzel at the University of Vienna as a doctor of political science . In the same year, forced collectivization in Ukraine led to a famine with millions of victims. Rosdolsky took these events as an opportunity to revise his doctoral thesis, which only appeared in 1964 under the title Friedrich Engels and the Problem of the Historically Without Peoples . Rosdolsky dedicated the book to the victims of Stalinism in Ukraine : “M. Skrypnyk, A. Schumskyj, K. Maksymowytsch ” .

During his stay in Vienna, Rosdolsky had great political influence on Emily Meder and other members of the KPÖ. "He moved me to read Trotsky's writings on the German question, which was really groundbreaking for me," said Emily Rosdolsky in an interview. In criticizing the KPD's policy and its social fascism thesis , Rosdolsky also said she was "very strongly influenced."

After the February fights in 1934, the labor movement in Austria suffered from severe repression by the Austrofascist Dollfuss regime . Roman Rosdolsky was expelled by the Austrian police and fled to Lemberg. There he worked as a lecturer (first as a scholarship holder, later as an assistant) at the Institute for Economic History at the University of Lviv, where the director of the institute, Franciszek Bujak, supported him against resistance. This enabled him to continue his studies on the national question. Rosdolsky used his assistant position for a range of research at the university's archives. In 1936 Die Ostgalizische Dorfgemeinschaft and its dissolution appeared. The publication of his two-volume work on serfdom and the oppression of the peasantry in Galicia was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. The work was only published in Warsaw in 1962. The German-language edition appeared in 1992 under the title Untertan und Staat in Galizien. The reforms under Maria Theresa and Joseph II.

Between 1934 and 1938 Rosdolsky published the Trotskyist magazine Žittja i slovo (Life and Word; ukr. Життя і слово). After the Communist Party and the Soviet Union were discredited in Western Ukraine, Rosdolsky stated that broad sections of the population were drawing closer to " Hitler's fascism " (Emily Rosdolsky). Many people linked this with the hope that Germany would soon liberate Ukraine, according to Rosdolsky. The building of a new socialist organization was, in his view, the only alternative to this development. Together with his friend Stepan Rudik, Rosdolsky began building up such a group and tried to get in touch with other Trotskyists. At this time he met the Polish Trotskyist Isaac Deutscher , who had joined the Communist Party of Poland in 1926 and was expelled in 1932 because, from their point of view, he exaggerated "the danger of Nazism" and had spread "panic in the ranks of the communists".

Even after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich on 12/13. In March 1938 the KPÖ cell of the 9th district had an “illegal conference of functionaries in the Vienna Woods” in which Emily Meder took part. Friedl Fürnberg from the KPÖ was of the opinion at the time that the National Socialists in Austria could “hold on to power for between 6 weeks and 6 months” , and by no means longer, ” she reported. "Roman Rosdolsky took a very firm stand against the claim that it was only a temporary defeat."

Since his escape from Vienna, Roman Rosdolsky had a lively correspondence with Emily Meder. “That also influenced my political convictions, of course,” she said later. Rosdolsky asked his comrade Emily Meder at the time if she “doesn't even want to breathe another air” (quote from Emily Rosdolsky) and invited her to Lviv. When she visited Rosdolsky in December 1938, Meder received the message from her companions from Vienna that she should “if possible not return to Austria” because of the strong repression . So Meder stayed in Lviv and finally married Roman Rosdolsky there in February 1939. However, she was not politically active in Lviv because she did not speak Ukrainian.

His political work made for Roman Rosdolsky increasingly a danger. When he had first fled from the Polish crew and thereafter before Austrofascism, there was the possibility of annexation of Western Ukraine by the Soviet Union , which for the Rosdolsky persecution by the Stalin regime means would have. Rosdolsky, who was “very well known as a Trotskyist” in Lviv (quote from Emily Rosdolsky), his partner Emily and himself did not want to expose himself to this risk . Rosdolsky's friend and comrade Stepan Rudik was arrested by the NKVD in autumn 1939, immediately after Rosdolsky's flight from Lemberg, and disappeared. After the left opposition in the USSR was destroyed by the Moscow trials , only two small groups of Ukrainian Trotskyists remained: one in Canada and the group around Rosdolsky in western Ukraine. This group was also persecuted, so that in 1940 there was no longer a Trotskyist organization in Ukraine.

In his extensive work National Question and Marxist Theory. Part 2: The Soviet experience wrote the historian Manfred Scharinger about the fate of Rosdolsky's group:

“After the Soviet invasion of western Ukraine on September 17, 1939, the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs immediately started persecuting this group. Many members perished in the Stalinist terror, others managed to escape to Nazi-occupied Poland, where the Gestapo persecuted them. "

Persecution by National Socialism and US exile (1939-1967)

Immediately after the beginning of the Second World War , Lemberg was incorporated into the Ukrainian SSR by the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland as a result of the Hitler-Stalin Pact in September 1939. When it became known that “the city would be occupied by the Russians” (quotation from Emily Rosdolsky), Emily and Roman Rosdolsky fled to Krakow on foot and by train for fear of Stalinism , because “Roman was in the city [Lviv; Note] had declared as a Trotskyist ” . At that time Kraków was already under German occupation , but the city seemed safer to the Rosdolskys than Lemberg. In Krakow, Emily worked as a secretary at Dresdner Bank and helped "give some people a job" with a small workshop that produced rice straw brushes .

At that time the Rosdolksys lived in the Jewish suburb of Kazimierz at 62 Dietlstrasse with a Jewish merchant. The Jewish orphanage of Kraków was located in the neighboring house at No. 64, so that the unemployed Roman Rosdolsky could follow the events there. At the beginning of December 1939 he was an eyewitness to the first so-called “Judenaktion” by the German occupation.

Without giving details of the Jewish action, Rosdolsky later reported:

“It was a day that old Krakow had not seen since the time of the medieval Jewish pogroms ; a day of shame and humiliation - not only for the victims of the infamous Jewish action, but perhaps even more so for those who, as “ Aryans ”, enjoyed the dubious privilege of being exempt from it. Even two Wehrmacht officers stopped next to me on the street, looked at the disgusting spectacle in silence and then went on their way, shaking their heads violently, visibly disgusted ... "

Finally, in September 1942, Roman and Emily Rosdolsky were arrested by the Gestapo for having sheltered Jews with them. Emily Rosdolsky, who was heavily pregnant at the time, was released after three weeks. Emily Rosdolsky explained in an interview with the historian Fritz Keller that her release from prison was due to the help of “an anti-Nazi Gestapo man” . In December 1942 Emily returned to Vienna, where she remained despite the constant risk of further imprisonment during the war. Later she went to Upper Austria because of the bombings in Vienna. In April 1943, a few months after the birth of his son Hans in January, Roman was deported from Krakow to the Auschwitz concentration camp .

Roman Rosdolsky was interned in the concentration camps of Auschwitz (where he had to work in a carpentry shop from spring 1943 to autumn 1944), Ravensbrück and Oranienburg until 1945 . After the liberation by the Red Army , he went to Linz , where he met his wife and child, who at that time were living with another comrade in Ried im Innkreis . After the war, Emily worked for the Linz Chamber of Labor as a youth protection secretary and education officer. Roman taught in the union school .

After Karl Fischer , an employee and comrade of Emily Rosdolsky, was kidnapped by Soviet agents "from the Chamber of Labor in Urfahr at the zone border " (quote from Emily Rosdolsky; the zone border was the Nibelungen Bridge , note) and moved to Siberia in 1947 because of his oppositional sentiments labor camp ( Gulag ) was abducted, the family emigrated Rosdolsky the fall of 1947 for fear of a similar fate in the United States.

Karl Fischer had already been imprisoned during the Austro-Fascist dictatorship and was then in Buchenwald concentration camp until 1945 . In the USSR, he was forced to do eight years of forced labor until he was released in 1955. Therefore, the Rosdolskys' fears for Emily at the time turned out to be justified in retrospect.

While his wife Emily, through the mediation of a comrade from Vienna, worked as a consultant in the research department of the United Auto Workers ( AFL-CIO ) in Detroit for 23 years - until her return to Vienna in 1971 - Roman found Rosdolsky in the McCarthy era no work. He was refused a university post, which is why he subsequently worked as a private scholar.

Roman Rosdolsky died in Detroit in 1967 at the age of 69. After her return to Vienna, Emily Rosdolsky worked as a volunteer for the documentation archive of the Austrian resistance . All anonymous forewords in the various publications of Roman Rosdolsky's texts come from her.

plant

The trained political scientist Roman Rosdolsky gained fame as a historian; above all through his classic work The Great Tax and Agrarian Reform of Joseph II (Warsaw 1961). Rosdolsky's most important work is his comprehensive reworking of Karl Marx's floor plans , which he dealt with from 1948 until his death in 1967. With the history of the origins of Marx's capital , which is considered the standard work of Marx research, he gained posthumous influence on the New Left and laid the foundation for post-Marxist value criticism . According to Eduard März , Rosdolsky's genesis is next to Paul Sweezy's theory of capitalist development (New York, 1942) the most important work of the new Marx reading . Both books have “an important part”, says März, “in the renaissance of Marxist teaching in the post-war period.” März continues:

"In the fruitful further development of many intellectual approaches of the classics, these form an impressive counterpart to the scholastic literature of Eastern stamping, which is wrongly associated with the name of Marx."

His wife Emily Rosdolsky sees the background for Rosdolsky's intensive critical examination of Marxism in particular in the failure of traditional workers' organizations and the crisis of Marxism on the eve of World War II and in the post-war period. Rosdolsky's personal experience from imprisonment in concentration camps from 1942 and the escape from Austria before Stalinism in 1947 also played a major role . After Rosdolsky's original perspective that "the war would lead to socialist revolutions in the capitalist countries and the replacement of Stalinist rule" proved to be wrong, he now concentrated on "the formation of a new revolutionary labor movement" and "deepening knowledge of the Marxist theory ”(Emily Rosdolsky).

The historical investigations of Rosdolsky's work and his doctoral thesis from 1929 on the treatment of the nationality problem in Marxism are of particular importance for academic research beyond the inner-Marxist debate. Since then he has concentrated his research on the revolutions of 1848/1849 in eastern Central Europe and on the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . Due to the eventful history of his homeland Galicia, Rosdolsky was very interested in the question of nationality and the history of Austria-Hungary, which for him was strongly linked to this question and with which he occupied himself throughout his life. A heavily revised version of his doctoral thesis was published in 1979 as a book under the title Friedrich Engels and the Problem of Peoples without History . This made Rosdolsky known to a wider audience again.

His friend Ernest Mandel , to whom Rosdolsky devoted his famous doctoral thesis Der Spätkapitalismus (Berlin 1972), praised the book in high terms:

"His most important work is undoubtedly 'Friedrich Engels and the problem of the' historically-less 'peoples', in which he describes the hostile attitude towards the smaller Slavic nationalities expressed by Marx and Engels during the revolution of 1848 in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung [...] subject to severe criticism. In my opinion, this is the first example of a successful Marxist criticism of Marx himself. "

During his work as a lecturer in Lviv in the mid-1930s, Rosdolsky was primarily concerned with the history of the Galician agricultural society . The book The Village Community in Former East Galicia and its Dissolution (Lemberg 1936) is about the East Galician field communities and their disappearance. The essay Karl Marx and the police spy Bangya , which shows Marx in involuntary cooperation with the Austrian and Prussian police, also dates from this time . In the two-volume work Subject and State in Galicia. The reforms under Maria Theresa and Joseph II are mainly about serfdom in ancient Galicia. This extensive work is based on several articles written as early as 1937–1939, but was not published until 1962 after the outbreak of World War II interrupted printing. The expert on the history of Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Horst Glassl, believes that Rosdolsky's study is "hard to beat in terms of its comprehensive questions and wealth of material."

Ralph Melville, the editor of the translation into German, also emphasizes Rosdolsky's research:

“In the meantime, the author was still able to use all of the Vienna and Lviv files, some of which have since been destroyed or are inaccessible to research. Rosdolsky's close to the source and at the same time systematic presentation is based primarily on the thorough evaluation of these files. "

In his foreword to The Peasant Representatives in the constituent Austrian Reichstag 1848–1849 , Rosdolsky writes that he was the first to view and evaluate these files. The research work in the Austrian state archives was made possible by a grant from the Theodor-Körner-Stiftung of the Vienna Chamber of Labor .

Rosdolsky's historical studies of the post-war period were all made while in exile in the United States. Eduard März writes in his introduction:

“During his frequent visits to Austria, Holland and Poland, he had the opportunity to continue his extensive archival studies. This resulted in a series of larger and smaller historical studies in quick succession. "

Rosdolsky's life's work can thus be roughly divided into three sub-areas: first, the biographical and theoretical research on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, second, the historical investigation of the revolutions of 1848/1849 in Eastern Central Europe, and third, the Marxist social history of his, embedded in the history of the dual monarchy Galician homeland. These themes are linked in many of his writings. He also dealt intensively with the peace of Brest-Litovsk .

Correspondence

Rosdolsky maintained a lively correspondence with well-known socialist writers such as the Austrian Social Democrat Julius Braunthal  (1965–1967), the Polish Trotskyist Isaac Deutscher  (1951–1966), the left-wing communist Karl Korsch  (1950–1954), the councilor communist Paul Mattick  (1964–1967) ), the Swiss Hegel expert Otto Morf (1952–1967), the German communist Solomon Meijerovi Švarc (also Salomon M. Schwarz; 1949–1967) and the Flemish Trotskyist Ernest Mandel . Like Roman Rosdolsky, most of them lived in US exile.

Works

Monographs

Rosdolsky Archives

A large part of the written estate of Roman Rosdolsky was archived at the International Institute for Social History (IISG) in Amsterdam after his death . In 1994 Emily Rosdolsky gave the institute a further collection of letters, manuscripts and pamphlets.

German-language essays

  • The East Galician Village Community and its Dissolution . In: Quarterly for social and economic history . tape 41 , no. 2 . Franz Steiner Verlag, 1954, p. 97–145 (Offprint from a quarterly publication. German summary of the similarly named writing from 1936).
  • Karl Marx and the police informer Bangya . In: International Review for Social History . tape 2 . Leyden 1937, p. 229-245 .
  • The history of Czech-Polish relations in the first half of the 19th century . In: Prager Rundschau . tape 8 . Prague 1938, p. 114-140 .
  • The Jewish orphanage in Krakow . In: SPÖ (ed.): Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna April 15, 1948 (written February 17, 1948).
  • On the more recent criticism of Marx's law of the falling rate of profit . In: Kyklos. International Journal of Social Sciences . tape 9 , no. 2 . Basel 1956, p. 208–226 (special edition).
  • The esoteric and the exoteric Marx. For the critical appraisal of Marx's wage theory I – III . In: Work and Economy . tape 11 , 11 ff. 1957, pp. 348-351, 388-391, 20-24 .
  • Review of Martin Trottmann, On the interpretation and criticism of the collapse theory by Henryk Grossmann . In: Kyklos. International Journal of Social Sciences . tape 3 . Basel 1957, p. 353-355 .
  • The use value in Karl Marx. A criticism of the previous Marx interpretation . In: Kyklos. International Journal of Social Sciences . tape XII . Basel 1959, p. 27-56 .
  • Joan Robinson's Critique of Marx . In: Work and Economy . tape 13 , 8 f. 1959, p. 178-183, 210-212 .
  • To analyze the Russian revolution . In: Ulf Wolter (ed.): The socialism debate. Historical and current issues of socialism . Olle & Wolter, Berlin (West) 1978, ISBN 3-921241-27-8 , pp. 203-236 (first edition: 1959).
  • K. Marx and his "private secretary" . In: International Review of Social History . tape 8 , 1963, pp. 282-285 .
  • Archival mishaps about O. Bauer . In: International Review of Social History . tape 8 , 1963, pp. 436-446 .
  • A neo-Marxist textbook on political economy . In: Kyklos. International Journal of Social Sciences . tape 16 , no. 4 . Basel November 1, 1963, p. 626–654 (special edition).
  • The role of chance and the "great men" in history . In: Criticism . tape 5 , no. 14 . Verlag Olle & Wolter, 1977, ISSN  0170-4761 , p. 67–96 (first edition: 1965).
  • Serbian Social Democracy and the Stockholm Conference of 1917 . In: Archives for Social History . tape 6-7 , 1966, pp. 583-597 .
  • The dispute over the Polish-Russian state borders on the occasion of the Polish uprising of 1863 . In: Archives for Social History . tape 9 , 1969, p. 157–180 (published posthumously).
  • The workers and the fatherland. On the interpretation of a passage in the Communist Manifesto . In: Fourth International (Ed.): The international . No. February 12 , 1978, ISSN  0256-4416 , p. 101–110 ( English version [accessed February 4, 2009] First published in Science and Society. No. 29, summer 1965).

More essays

  • The Distribution of the Agrarian Product in Feudalism . In: Economic History Association (Ed.): The Journal of Economic History . tape 11 , no. 3 , part 1. Cambridge University Press, 1951, ISSN  0022-0507 , pp. 247–265 ( JSTOR [accessed on February 9, 2008] German as: The distribution of agricultural products in feudalism. (The burden councils of the subservient peasants and the possibilities of their calculation. Publisher unknown).
  • La Neue Rheinische Zeitung et les Juifs . In: Etudes de Marxologie . No. August 7 , 1963.
  • A Revolutionary Parable on the Equality of Men . In: Archives for Social History . tape 3 , 1963, p. 291-293 .
  • Method of Marx's Capital . In: New German Critique . No. 3 , 1974.
  • The situation révolutionnaire en Autriche en 1918 et la politique des sociaux-démocrates . In: Critique Communiste . tape 7 , no. 8 , 1976.
  • A Memoir of Auschwitz and Birkenau . In: Monthly Review . tape 39 , no. January 8 , 1988, pp. 33–38 ( BNET [accessed February 23, 2008] Originally published in the Ukrainian magazine Oborona . Translation and introduction by John-Paul Himka).
  • Lenin and the First World War . Prinkipo Press, London 1999.

literature

List of German-language literature

  • Otto Morf: On the “Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy” . In: History and Dialectics in Political Economy. On the relationship between economic theory and economic history in Karl Marx . 1970 ( October 2004 version [accessed February 9, 2008] The work is dedicated to Roman Rosdolsky).
  • Paul Mattick : Death in Exile. Roman Rosdolsky: The Symbolic Fate of an Eastern European Marxist . In: Socialist Party of Austria (ed.): The future - Socialist magazine for politics, economy and culture . No. 19/20 . Vienna October 1971, p. 35 f . ( Online version [accessed February 4, 2009]).
  • Ernest Mandel : Late Capitalism. Attempt at a Marxist explanation . Suhrkamp, ​​1972, ISBN 3-518-10521-3 (The book is dedicated to Roman Rosdolsky).
  • Michael Löwy : The national question and the classics of Marxism . In: Thomas Nairn, Eric Hobsbawm et al. (Ed.): Nationalism and Marxism . Berlin 1978, p. 103 .
  • Ralph Melville: Roman Rosdolsky (1898–1967) as a historian of Galicia and the Habsburg monarchy . In: Roman Rosdolsky, Subject and State in Galicia. The reforms under Maria Theresa and Joseph II . Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1992, p. VIII-XXV .
  • Fritz Keller : Alfred Klahr in Auschwitz concentration camp. Interview with Emmy Rosdolsky . In: Documentation archive of Austrian resistance (ed.): Yearbook 1998 . Self-published, Vienna 1998, p. 69-72 .
  • Peter Cardorff: Man without a rope. Roman Rosdolsky on his hundredth birthday . In: ak . No. 416 . Hamburg July 2, 1998, p. 32 f . (The article is based on long conversations with Emily Rosdolsky , who also checked the facts).
  • Fritz Keller: Emily Rosdolsky died . In: Association for solidarity perspectives (ed.): SoZ - Sozialistische Zeitung . No. 22 . Hamburg October 25, 2001, p. 15 ( online version [accessed July 13, 2008]).
  • Anselm Jappe: pioneer of value criticism. Roman Rosdolsky . In: Kritischer Kreis (Ed.): Streifzüge . tape 7 , no. 1 . Vienna 2002 ( online version [accessed on February 10, 2008] On the occasion of the translation into Portuguese by Cesar Benjamin. Copyleft ( memento of June 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )).
  • Marcus Gassner: The Marxian schemata and their problems . In: floor plans . tape 1 , no. 1 , 2002, ISSN  1814-3164 ( online version [accessed February 10, 2008] Introduction to the discussion of the reproduction schemes. GNU FDL ).
  • Michael Buckmiller : The Marx interpretation in the correspondence between Karl Korsch and Roman Rosdolsky. In: Contributions to Marx-Engels research. New episode. Special volume 5. The Marx-Engels editions of works in the USSR and GDR (1945–1968). Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 3-88619-691-7 , pp. 303-367 with 30 letters
  • Rosdolsky Circle: With permanent greetings. Life and work of Emmy and Roman Rosdolsky . Mandelbaum, Vienna 2017, ISBN 978-3-85476-662-9 .

List of foreign language literature

  • Ernest Mandel : Roman Rosdolsky (1898–1967) . In: Quatrième Internationale . No. 33 , April 1968, p. 70-72 ( Dutch translation . In: De Internationale. Vol. 42, No. 63, February 1998, pp. 26-28 [accessed February 10, 2008] English translation: Roman Rosdolsky - a genuine Marxist scholar. In: Intercontinental Press. (New York). Vol. 6, Vol. 21, June 3, 1968, pp. 512-514.).
  • Raya Dunayevskaya : A Critique of Roman Rosdolsky. Rosdolsky's Methodology and the Missing Dialectic . In: London Corresponding Committee (ed.): The Hobgoblin . No. 6 , 2005 ( online version ( February 8, 2008 memento in the Internet Archive ) [accessed February 10, 2008] Reprint from: Marx's Capital and Today's Global Crisis . News & Letters , Detroit 1978).
  • Janusz Radziejowski: Roman Rosdolsky: Man, Activist and Scholar . In: David Laibman (Ed.): Science & Society . tape 42 , no. 2 , 1978, ISSN  0036-8237 , pp. 198–210 (Contains biographical details. Translation by John-Paul Himka).
  • John-Paul Himka: Roman Rosdolsky's Reconsideration of the Traditional Marxist Debate on the Schemes of Reproduction on New Methodological Grounds: Comments . In: IS Koropeckyj (Ed.): Selected Contributions of Ukrainian Scholars to Economics. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Sources and Documents series . Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (Harvard University Press), Cambridge, Mass. 1984, p. 135-147 (comments on the above essay).
  • Manfred A. Turban: Roman Rosdolsky's Reconsideration of the Traditional Marxist Debate on the Schemes of Reproduction on New Methodological Grounds . In: IS Koropeckyj (Ed.): Selected Contributions of Ukrainian Scholars to Economics. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Sources and Documents series . Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (Harvard University Press), Cambridge, Mass. 1984, p. 91–134 (dealing with Rosdolsky's analysis of the debate about reproductive schemes ).
  • Andy Clarkson: Review: Engels and the 'Nonhistoric' Peoples . In: Revolutionary History . tape 3 , no. 2 , 1990 ( online version [accessed August 28, 2015] book review in English).
  • E. Haberkern: On Roman Rosdolsky as a guide to the politics of the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" . In: David Laibman (Ed.): Science & Society . tape 63 , no. 2 , 1999, ISSN  0036-8237 , p. 235-241 ( article directory [accessed 10 February 2008]).
  • Chris Ford: Roman Rosdolsky. A contribution to the history of the Ukrainian left-wing socialist movement in Galicia . In: Workers Action . No. 28 . London February 2005 ( online version ( memento of July 23, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) [accessed February 10, 2008] Covers the Dragomanov Circle and the war years 1916 to 1918).

further reading

  • David Yaffe: Review Article: Imperialism and the Accumulation of Capital . In: Bulletin of the Conference of Socialist Economists . tape 2 , no. 2 , 1972, p. 70–77 ( online version [accessed February 4, 2009] in English).
  • Leon Trotsky : The Ukrainian question . In: Helmut Dahmer et al. (Ed.): Leon Trotsky: Schriften 1.2. Soviet society and the Stalinist dictatorship 1936–1940 . Hamburg 1988, p. 1168–1176 (Russian original: Coyoacán, April 22, 1939).
  • Manfred Scharinger: The economic development from 1849 to 1918 . In: Working group Marxism (ed.): Capitalism in Austria - from the beginnings to today (Marxism) . tape 5 . AGM, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-901831-03-7 ( online version [accessed February 9, 2008]).
  • Martin Jakob ao: Imperialism & Marxist Theory. Part 1: The classics . In: Working group Marxism (ed.): Marxism . tape 7 . Vienna March 1996 ( online version [accessed February 9, 2008] 222 pages).
  • Michael Heinrich : Weltanschauung Marxism or Critique of Political Economy? In: floor plans . tape 1 , no. 1 , 2002, ISSN  1814-3164 ( online version [accessed February 10, 2008] Contains a section on Rosdolsky's role in discourse in the 1970s. GNU FDL ).
  • Working group Marxism (ed.): Imperialism & Marxist theory (=  Marxism . Volume 21 ). Part 2: From the early Comintern to the Fourth International . Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-901831-17-7 ( overview [accessed on February 9, 2008]).
  • Manfred Scharinger / Eric Wegner: National Question and Marxist Theory . Ed .: Working group Marxism (=  Marxism . Volume 23 ). Part 1: The classics . Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-901831-19-3 ( Editorial [accessed February 9, 2008]).
  • Gianni Albertini: Contribution to the discussion on the national question in the early Soviet Union . Ed .: Working group Marxism. 2004 ( online version [accessed February 9, 2008]).
  • Manfred Scharinger: National question and Marxist theory . Ed .: Working group Marxism (=  Marxism . Volume 24 ). Part 2: The Soviet Experience . Vienna 2004, ISBN 3-901831-20-7 ( Editorial [accessed February 9, 2008]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Werner Röder , Herbert A. Strauss (ed.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933 . 3 volumes, KG Saur Verlag , Munich 1980–1983. Here: Volume 1, 1980: Politics, Economy, Public Life. P. 158 f. ( Can be viewed as a facsimile in the WBIS .)
  2. ↑ Michael Heinrich : Annotated literature list on the criticism of political economy. In: Elmar Altvater et al: Kapital.doc , Münster 1999. ( Online version ( Memento from June 5, 2008 in the Internet Archive ); checked on: March 4, 2008)
  3. ^ Andy Clarkson: Review: Engels and the 'Nonhistoric' Peoples. In: Revolutionary History. 3, No. 2, autumn 1990 ( online version ; checked on: August 28, 2015)
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Emily Rosdolsky : life, motifs, work . Foreword by: On the national question. Friedrich Engels and the problem of the 'historically less' peoples . Verlag Olle & Wolter, Berlin (West) 1979.
  5. ↑ a b c d Peter Cardorff: Man without a rope. Roman Rosdolsky on his hundredth birthday. In: ak 416 Hamburg, July 2, 1998.
  6. ↑ For an overview of Dragomanov's works see FES : Michail Dragomanow general catalog  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. as well as the catalog of the universities of Graz, Linz and Innsbruck .@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / library.fes.de  
  7. ↑ Abbreviations from holdings of the parties and mass organizations of the GDR , archives of the SED and the FDGB
  8. ^ JSTOR: Slavic Review . Vol. 36, No. 1, March 1977, p. 139.
  9. ↑ Manfred Scharinger: National question and Marxist theory. Part 2: The Soviet Experience. In: Working group Marxism (ed.): Marxism. 24, Vienna October 2004, p. 112 ff.
    See also: History of Ukraine: First independence after the First World War - division between Central European countries and the Soviet Union
  10. ↑ Torsten Wehrhahn: The West Ukrainian People's Republic. On Polish-Ukrainian relations and the problem of the Ukrainian statehood in the years 1918 to 1923 . Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89998-045-X ( reading sample PDF, 157 kB)
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Roman Rosdolsky Papers , directory at the International Institute for Social History Amsterdam (php, 141432 bytes)
  12. ↑ Quoted from: Peter Cardorff: Man without a rope. Roman Rosdolsky on his hundredth birthday. In: ak 416 Hamburg, July 2, 1998.
  13. ↑ Manfred Scharinger: National question and Marxist theory. Part 2: The Soviet Experience. In: Working group Marxism (ed.): Marxism. 24, Vienna October 2004, p. 175.
  14. ↑ The CPP is not to be confused with the real socialist Polish United Workers' Party (PVAP), the ruling party of the People's Republic of Poland , founded in 1948 .
  15. ↑ See also: Georg W. Strobel: Tactics, Liquidation and Rehabilitation of the Polish Communist Party . In: Eastern Europe. No. 3, 1956, pp. 279-282.
  16. ↑ Max Shachtman : Introduction. In: Leon Trotsky : The Stalin School of Falsification . New York, May 1, 1937 ( online version ; as of May 6, 2009).
    Josef Stalin : To Comrade Kaganowitsch and the other members of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian Communist Party (B) . April 26, 1926 ( online version ; English; as of May 6, 2009).
  17. ^ Janusz Radziejowski: Roman Rosdolsky: Man, Activist and Scholar. In: David Laibman (Ed.): Science & Society . 42, No. 2, 1978, ISSN  0036-8237 , pp. 198-210.
  18. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Fritz Keller : Interview with Emily Rosdolsky , June 7, 1983
  19. ↑ Anselm Jappe: Trailblazer of value criticism: Roman Rosdolsky. In: Kritischer Kreis (Ed.): Streifzüge . 7, No. 1, Vienna 2002 ( online version ; as of April 29, 2008. Copyleft ( memento of June 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive )).
  20. ↑ Leon Trotsky : History of the Russian Revolution. Volume 2/2. October Revolution . Frankfurt am Main 1973, p. 729 ( Online ; checked on: March 3, 2008)
  21. ^ A b Marxists Internet Archive : Rosdolsky, Roman (1898–1967) .
  22. ↑ Tamara Deutscher: Isaac Deutscher 1907-1967. In: Isaac Deutscher : The Non-Jewish Jew and other essays . London 1981, p. VIII.
  23. ↑ a b Manfred Scharinger: National question and Marxist theory. Part 2: The Soviet Experience. In: Working group Marxism (ed.): Marxism. 24, Vienna October 2004, p. 499, footnote 1994.
    The footnote is provided with the following note: "See: Trotsky, Schriften 1.2, p. 1184, note 28"
  24. ^ Roman Rosdolsky: The Jewish Orphanage in Krakow. February 17, 1948. In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna, April 15, 1948.
  25. ↑ a b c Fritz Keller : Emily Rosdolsky died . In: SoZ - Sozialistische Zeitung , No. 22, October 25, 2001, p. 15.
  26. ^ Auschwitz 75th Anniversary: ​​A memoir by Roman Rosdolsky (1956) , translated by John-Paul Himka. In: Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (blog), January 27, 2020.
  27. ^ Fritz Keller : In the GULAG from East and West. Karl Fischer, worker and revolutionary . International Socialist Publications, Frankfurt am Main 1980, p. 103 ff. (The part that deals with the deportation in the book is an autobiographical, unfinished manuscript by Karl Fischer.)
  28. ↑ a b c Ralph Melville in: Roman Rosdolsky: Subject and State in Galizien. The reforms under Maria Theresa and Joseph II. Mainz 1992.
  29. ^ A b Eduard March : Introduction. In: Roman Rosdolsky: The peasant representatives in the constituent Austrian Reichstag 1848–1849. Frankfurt am Main / Vienna 1976.
  30. ↑ Spine of: Roman Rosdolsky: On the national question. Friedrich Engels and the problem of the 'historically less' peoples . Berlin (West), 1979.
  31. ^ Roman Rosdolsky: Karl Marx and the police spy Bangya. In: International Review for Social History. 2, Leyden, 1937, pp. 229-245.
  32. ^ Roman Rosdolsky: The peasant delegates in the constituent Austrian Reichstag 1848–1849. Frankfurt am Main / Vienna 1976, source reference on p. 232.
  33. ^ Roman Rosdolsky: Studies on revolutionary tactics. Two unpublished works on the Second International and Austrian Social Democracy . Berlin (West), 1973.
  34. ^ Karl Korsch : Letters 1908-1958 (Complete Edition - Volumes 8 and 9) . Edited by Michael Buckmiller , Michel Prat and Meike G. Werner in collaboration with the publishing house Stichting beheer IISG , Amsterdam, ISBN 90-6861-128-3 .
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 14, 2009 .
personal data
SURNAME Rosdolsky, novel
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rozdol'skij, Roman Ossipovic
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Marxist theorist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Lviv , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH 20th October 1967
Place of death Detroit , USA