In a counter-revolutionary hour, what next?

Abstract

The worldwide rise of the far right has drawn attention to the ‘crisis of democracy’. Beyond recent conjunctural aspects, it is possible to trace the criticism of the social aspects of democracy back to the origins of neoliberalism, understood as a counter-revolutionary political movement. The question of democracy has moved to the centre of the work of left-wing movements, which requires reflection on the political content of bourgeois democracy and the ways of acting in a counter-revolutionary moment. This paper deals with Rosa Luxemburg's formulations on the importance of democracy and on the actions of the socialist movement in periods of political reflux through her work on the Russian Empire. By critically recovering the ideas of the Polish revolutionary, it seeks to contribute to the formulation of possible responses to contemporary political challenges.