Rosa Luxemburg — Resolution on Food Taxation

From the 1912 Bulletin of the International Socialist Bureau (Brussels), №8, p.129. Based on Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 3, 1973, p. 57.

This resolution was introduced by Rosa Luxemburg at the meeting of the International Socialist Bureau on September 23, 1911 in Zurich; it passed.

The International Socialist Bureau declares, that the detrimental rise in food prices, which engulfs the starved masses into frenzied protests in capitalist countries one by one, is firstly the result of the unscrupulous customs policy in most capitalist states, such as the criminal policy which most of all ensures the protection of the agricultural interests that the socialist parties combat fundamentally; secondly, this increase in prices is the result of the business maneuvers of the capitalist cartels, which are the worst enemies of the proletariat and its fight for liberation.

The International Socialist Bureau calls on the working men and women of all countries, who are suffering due to the terrible price increases in the necessary food, to join the socialist parties and trade unions en masse to strengthen the army of class conscious proletariat, which presents the only serious way of fighting against the rise in food prices, as it is attacks the capitalist society — the real cause of the current inflation regarding food.