Karl Kautsky: Terrorism and Communism: A Contribution to the Natural History

[heiss93]

Has anyone read Kautsky's Communism and Terror. It is a very "Hegelian" moment in the sense that you see the tragic clash of the "Right" of Social Democracy against the new "Right" of Communism.

It was recommended in Kolokowski's anti-Marxist "Main Currents of Communism". I was interested in getting Kautsky's take on the French Revolution and his work on 1789 is not in English.

Basically his position is that the Jacobins and Bolsheviks both did not represent the proleteriat in the scientific sense of having no means of production. Instead they represented the petty-bourgeoise who had been proleterianized socially into poverty, but still controlled property. Because there was no class basis to establish socialism in either 1794 or 1917, the only solution was Terror that was doomed to fail.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1919/terrcomm/index.htm

[Zanthorus]

Trotsky did a reply, which I haven't read through yet, and have heard some pretty bad things about (His defence of the militarisation of labour for instance), but you should probably read it just for reference:

Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/index.htm)


Instead they represented the petty-bourgeoise who had been proleterianized socially into poverty, but still controlled property.

This is pretty much nonsense, the Bolsheviks had their strongest support in areas with large industrial working-class' like Petrograd and Moscow. If the Bolsheviks represented the impoverished petty-bourgeoisie, why did the peasant vote go towards the Social-Revolutionaries?

[RedMaterialist]

[QUOTE=heiss93;1902726]

the only solution was Terror that was doomed to fail.

QUOTE]

Kautsky's argument was, essentially, that socialist revolutions are by nature terroristic. This argument has been taken up and repeated by all reactionaries since. Its most cartoonish version is: "The Evil Empire."

If by terror one means the mass slaughter of innocent people then all revolutions have been terroristic, slave, serf, bourgeois; feudal and capitalist regimes have had no trouble justifying the murder of civilians. Many acts of modern war are terroristic: the Hiroshima, Dresden, London bombings.

As far as whether terror fails or not, sometimes it does, sometimes not. It succeeded in France in suppressing the internal support for foreign invasion to reestablish the monarchy. In Russia it succeeded in the same way: it prevented the reestablishment of the monarchy and won the civil war against the invading foreign forces.

The London bombings did not work, Hiroshima did.

It seems to me that terror is a political weapon; however, when they do it, it is terror, when we do it, it is "defending freedom and democracy." If Kautsky was nothing else, he was certainly a "freedom loving social-democrat."

[Kiev Communard]

If Kautsky was nothing else, he was certainly a "freedom loving social-democrat."

Kautsky definitely ignored the acts of White Terror, both in Russia and Germany, so I guess you're right on this.

[RedMaterialist]

Kautsky definitely ignored the acts of White Terror, both in Russia and Germany, so I guess you're right on this.

You don't read much "you're right on this" on this web site. Unless you are using "right" in another sense. :D

[RED DAVE]

Fucking Kautsky didn't have the guts or the brains to oppose Germany's entry into WWI.

RED DAVE

[heiss93]

Fucking Kautsky didn't have the guts or the brains to oppose Germany's entry into WWI.

RED DAVE

Ironically he attacks Lenin for not caring if German militarism conquered the world.