Roman Rosdolsky

Roman Rosdolsky was an important Marxian scholar and political activist. He was born in Lemberg in Galicia, at that time in the Austro-Hungarian empire, now Lviv in Ukraine on 19 July1898, and died in Detroit, USA on 15 October1967. The city of L'viv was annexed by Poland after the world war, occupied by the Red Army in September 1939, occupied by the Nazis in 1941, and liberated in 1944 by the Red Army. Rosdolsky's father was a Ukrainian linguist of some repute.

As a youth, Rosdolsky was a member of the Ukrainian socialist "Drahomanov Circles". He was drafted in the imperial army in 1915, and edited with Roman Turiansky the journal "Klyči" in 1917. He was a founder of the International Revolutionary Social Democracy (IRSD) and studied law in Prague. During World War I he founded the antimilitaristic "Internationale Revolutionäre Sozialistische Jugend Galiziens" (International Revolutionary Socialist Youth of Galizia) . He became a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Eastern Galicia, representing its emigré organization 1921-1924 and a leading publicist of the "Vasylkivtsi" faction of the Ukrainian Communists. In 1925, he refused to condemn Trotsky and his Left Opposition, and was later, at the end of the 1920s, expelled from the Communist Party.

In 1926-1931, he was correspondent in Vienna of the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, searching for archival materials. At that time, in 1927, he met his wife Emily. When the labour movement in Austria suffered repression, he emigrated in 1934 back to L'viv, where he worked at the university as lecturer. He published the Trotskyist periodical "Žittja i slovo" 1934-1938, and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942, but survived internment in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Oranienburg. He emigrated to the USA in 1947, and worked there as independent scholar - failing to obtain a university post.

Rosdolsky is mainly known in the Anglo-Saxon world for his careful scholarly exegesis "The Making of Marx's Capital", a collection of essays some which had previously been published, which overturned many previous interpretations of Das Kapital. Yet he published much more, especially on historical topics (see below). During his life, he corresponded with numerous well known Marxist writers including Isaac Deutscher, Ernest Mandel, Paul Mattick, and Karl Korsch. Mandel called his work on the National Question the only marxist criticism on Marx himself.

Rosdolsky Archive

A description of the Rosdolsky archives can be found at the International Institute of Social History site [http://www.iisg.nl/archives/en/files/r/10767769.php]

Main published works in English

Roman Rosdolsky, "The Making of Marx's Capital". London: Pluto Press", 1977.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Method of Marx's Capital". "New German Critique", Number 3, Fall 1974.

Roman Rosdolsky, "A Memoir of Auschwitz and Birkenau." (Introd. John-Paul Himka). "Monthly Review" Vol. 39, no. 8 (January 1988), pp. 33-38. [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n8_v39/ai_6319771]

Roman Rosdolsky, "Engels and the `Nonhistoric' Peoples: the National Question in the Revolution of 1848". Glasgow: Critique books, 1987. First published in "Critique", No.18/19, 1986.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Lenin and the First World War".London: Prinkipo Press, 1999.

Roman Rosdolsky, "The Distribution of the Agrarian Product in Feudalism", in: "Journal of Economic History" (1951), pp. 247–265

Roman Rosdolsky, "A Revolutionary Parable on the Equality of Men", in: "Archiv für Sozialgeschichte", Bd. 3 (1963), S. 291–293.

Published writing in German

Roman Rosdolsky, "La Neue Rheinische Zeitung et les Juifs", in: "Etudes de Marxologie", no.7 (Aug. 1963).

Roman Rosdolsky, "Der Gebrauchswert bei Karl Marx. Eine Kritik der bisherigen Marx-Interpretation", "Kyklos. Internationale Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaften", Vol. XII 1959, Basel, pp. 27-56.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Die Rolle des Zufalls und der"Grossen Männer" in der Geschichte" (1965) . "Kritik", Vol 5, No. 14, 1977, p. 67-96, Verlag Olle & Wolter, ISSN 0170-4761.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Zur nationalen Frage. Friedrich Engels und das Problem der 'geschichtslosen' Völker", Verlag Olle & Wolter, Berlin 1979, ISBN 3 921241 56 1. Dt Erstausgabe des Hauptteils in: Archiv für Sozialgeschichte, Bd. IV., 1964, Hg. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

Roman Rosdolsky, "Untertan und Staat in Galizien : die Reformen unter Maria Theresia und Joseph II". Mainz: Von Zabern, 1992.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Die grosse Steuer- und Agrarreform Josefs II. Ein Kapitel zur österreichischen Wirtschaftsgeschichte". Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1961.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Archivalische Miszellen über O. Bauer". "International Review of Social History", vol. 8(1963), pp. 436-446.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Studien über revolutionäre Taktik. Zwei unveröffentlichte Arbeiten über die II. Internationale und die österreichische Sozialdemokratie". Verlag für das Studium der Arbeiterbewegung, Berlin, 1973.

Roman Rosdolsky, "K. Marx und ein "Privatsekretär" Th. Sanders". "International Review of Social History" vol. 8(1963), pp. 282-285.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Ein neomarxistisches Lehrbuch der politischen Ökonomie", in: "Kyklos. Internationale Zeitschrift für Sozialwissenschaften", Vol. XVI, 1963, pp. 626-654.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Die serbische Sozialdemokratie und die Stockholmer Konferenz von 1917", in: "Archiv für Sozialgeschichte", Vol. 6-7(1966-67), pp. 583-597.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Studien über revolutionäre Taktik. Zwei unveröffentlichte Arbeiten über die II. Internationale und über die österreichische Sozialdemokratie." VSA (archiv-drucke 2), Berlin 1973.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Die serbische Sozialdemokratie und die Stockholmer Konferenz von 1917", in: "Archiv für Sozialgeschichte", Vol. 6-7(1966-67), pp. 583-597.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Der Streit um die polnisch-russischen Staatsgrenzen anlässlich des polnischen Aufstandes von 1863", in: "Archiv für Sozialgeschichte", Vol. 9(1969), pp. 157-180.

Roman Rosdolsky, 1959, ’Zur Analyse der russischen Revolution’, in "Die Sozialismusdebatte. Historische und aktuelle Fragen des Sozialismus", edited by Ulf Wolter, West Berlin: Olle & Wolter, 1978: 203-36. ISBN 3 921241 27 8

Roman Rosdolsky, "Studien über revolutionäre Taktik. Zwei unveröffentlichte Arbeiten über die II. Internationale und über die österreichische Sozialdemokratie." VSA (archiv-drucke 2), Berlin 1973.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Karl Marx und der Polizeispitzel Bangya, in: International Review for Social History", Vol. 2, Leyden 1937, pp. 229-245.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Die Geschichte der tschechisch-polnischen Beziehungen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts", in: [Prager Rundschau, Jg. 8 (1938)] , S. 114–140.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Zur neueren Kritik des Marxschen Gesetzes der fallenden Profitrate", in: "Kyklos", 2 (1956), S. 208–226

Roman Rosdolsky, Review of Martin Trottmann, Zur Interpretation und Kritik der Zusammenbruchstheorie von Henryk Grossmann, in: "Kyklos", 3 (1957), S. 353–355.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Der esoterische und der exoterische Marx. Zur kritischen Würdigung der Marxschen Lohntheorie I–III", in: "Arbeit und Wirtschaft", Vol. 11 (1957), Nr. 11ff., pp. 348–351, 388–391, 20–24.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Joan Robinsons Marx-Kritik", in: "Arbeit und Wirtschaft", Vol. 13 (1959), Nr. 8f., pp. 178–183, 210–212.

Roman Rosdolsky, "Zur neueren Kritik des Marxschen Gesetzes der fallenden Profitrate", in: "Kyklos", 2 (1956), S. 208–226.

References & external links

Ernest Mandel, "Roman Rosdolsky (1898-1967)", Quatrième Internationale, 33 (April 1968). English translation: "Roman Rosdolsky - a genuine Marxist scholar", "Intercontinental Press"(New York), 6, 21: 512-514, 3 June 1968. Dutch translation: "Wie was Roman Rosdolsky" [http://www.marxists.org/nederlands/mandel/1968/1968rosdolsky.htm] (obituary)

Obituary of Emily Rosdolsky [http://www.vsp-vernetzt.de/soz/0122152.htm]

Janusz Radziejowski, "Roman Rosdolsky: man, activist a scholar", in: "Science & Society", Vol. 42 (1978) Nr. 2, pp. 198-210 (provides biographical details).

Ralph Melvile 1992, ’Roman Rosdolsky (1898-1967) als Historiker Galiziens und der Habsburgermonarchie’, in: Roman Rosdolsky, "Untertan und Staat in Galizien. Die Reformen unter Maria Theriasia und Joseph II", Mainz: Von Zabern: VII-XXV.

"On Roman Rosdolsky as a Guide to the Politics of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung", "Science & Society", Vol. 63, Nr 2, pp. 235-241

Review of Roman Rosdolsky, "Engels and the `Nonhistoric' Peoples". [http://www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/backiss/Vol3/No2/Rosdolsk.html]

Raya Dunayevskaya, "A Critique of Roman RosdolskyRosdolsky’s Methodology and the Missing Dialectic" [http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk/journal/6rosdolsky.htm]

Manfred A. Turban, "Roman Rosdolsky's Reconsideration of the Traditional Marxist Debate on the Schemes of Reproduction on New Methodological Grounds", in Koropeckyj, I. S., ed. "Selected Contributions of Ukrainian Scholars to Economics. Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Sources and Documents series". Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute distributed by Harvard University Press, 1984, pages 91-134.

John Paul Himka, "Roman Rosdolsky's Reconsideration of the Traditional Marxist Debate on the Schemes of Reproduction on New Methodological Grounds: Comments", in Koropeckyj, I. S., ed. "Selected Contributions of Ukrainian Scholars to Economics". Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute Sources and Documents series. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute distributed by Harvard University Press, 1984, pages 135-47.

João Antonio de Paula, "Roman Rosdolsky (1898-1967): um intelectual em tempos de extremos". "Nova Economia", vol.17, n.2, 2007. [http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-63512007000200004&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=pt]