Kautsky? [Archive]

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Kingfish

24th July 2013, 12:00

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

24th July 2013, 12:29

Kautsky's views are extremely important. Why? Precisely because they are Kautsky's. In the years after the death of Engels, Kautsky was the leading marxist theoretician for the SPD and Social-Democracy in general. He held much of Marx's body of work after Engels' death and published what is regarded as the fourth volume of Kapital (I don't think it has been trnaslated though), was the editor of the theoretical journal Die Neue Zeit and an important author in popularising marxism. It was Kautsky who wrote the theoretical part of the Erfurt programme, made the commentary on the Erfurt programme and wrote magnificent rebuttals of Bernstein. It is barely an exaggeration to say that an entire generation of socialists around the world were taught Marx by the writings of Kautsky. Especially in Russia his work had much respect.

To understand Lenin we must look at his texts. Lenin took many of Kautsky's views. That's why when Kautsky, according to him, changed his views he wrote so many angry things about it. He hated Kautsky because he loved his earlier works. In the war years he regularly quotes Kautsky when he was a marxist, for example.
For example Lenin wrote this:
"For decades, German Social-Democracy was a model to the Social-Democrats of Russia, even somewhat more than to the Social-Democrats of the whole world. It is therefore clear that there can be no intelligent, i.e., critical, attitude towards the now prevalent social-patriotism or “socialist” chauvinism, without a most precise definition of one’s attitude towards German Social-Democracy, What was it in the past? What is it today? What will it be in the future?

A reply to the first of these questions may be found in Der Weg zur Macht, a pamphlet written by K. Kautsky in 1909 and translated into many European languages. Containing a most complete exposition of the tasks of our times, it was most advantageous to the German Social-Democrats (in the sense of the promise they held out), and moreover came from the pen of the most eminent writer of the Second International. We shall recall the pamphlet in some detail; this will be the more useful now since those forgotten ideals are so often barefacedly cast aside." http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/dec/12.htm

He then makes a summary of the views proclaimed by Kautsky in his last great work, according to Lenin, Road to Power. He concludes:

"This is how Kautsky wrote in times long, long past, fully five years ago. This is what German Social-Democracy was, or, more correctly, what it promised to be. This was the kind of Social-Democracy that could and had to be respected."

Lenin critiques Kautsky's Road to Power in state and revolution for being too quiet on the state. In that regards I agree with Lenin, Kautsky was too quiet on it in Road to Power.
However, Kautsky, in 1905, also wrote a series of articles called Republic and Social-Democracy in France (http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1905/frankreich/index.html) it is currently being translated by Ben Lewis of the CPGB and the link is to the German version. This work is about the state.

Kautsky's most important works are:
The commentary on the Erfurt Programme know as the Class Struggle (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1892/erfurt/index.htm)
A work called the Social revolution and the day after Social Revolution (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1902/socrev/index.htm)
And, according to Lenin, his last good work, the Road to Power (https://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/power/index.htm)

Many see Kautsky betrayed, reneged, on his earlier Marxism. Perhaps rightly so, although there is still some debate wether or not he "reneged" on his marxism or just started to have views many disagree with but still used his earlier Marxist method, I am more inclined to the former personally.

There are a few people here on revleft, from the Revolutionary Marxists usergroup, and in the Communist Party of Great Britain (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/) who try to rehabilitate the forgotten legacy of revolutionary social-democracy and Kautsky, and rightly so!
With the importance Kautsky and German Social-Democracy played in the European workers movement of the late 19th and early 20th century, I think it is not an exaggeration to say that we need to understand both in order to understand Lenin and the European workers movement as a whole.

Noa Rodman

24th July 2013, 16:32

AFAIK in Luxemburg's Reform or Revolution there is no mention of Kautsky.

In State and Revolution Lenin makes an error (http://libcom.org/library/correction-friederich-engels-karl-kautsky) in claiming that Engels's critique of the draft of the Erfurt program was directed against Kautsky.

Lenin refers negatively to Kautsky’ s Controversy with Pannekoek, but writes that "[t]he formulation in which Pannekoek presented his ideas suffers from serious defects" and that "[..]Pannekoek’s exposition lacks precision and concreteness—not to speak of other shortcomings of his article which have no bearing on the present subject [..]". All that Lenin seems to do against Kautsky is quote Marx on the commune. Kautsky's polemic with Pannekoek has not been critiqued properly (not even translated).

Lenin critiques Kautsky's Road to Power in state and revolution for being too quiet on the state. In that regards I agree with Lenin, Kautsky was too quiet on it in Road to Power.
However, Kautsky, in 1905, also wrote a series of articles called Republic and Social-Democracy in France (http://www2.cddc.vt.edu/marxists/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1905/frankreich/index.html) it is currently being translated by Ben Lewis of the CPGB and the link is to the German version. This work is about the state. In that text Kautsky does quote Marx on the commune, just as Lenin liked to see him do. However Kautsky didn't see those comments as crucial for Marx, as he writes later (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1924/labour/index.htm). His argument there for coalition policy, for the continued existence of money, etc. all are mocked as proof of him being a renegade, but surely this is not enough. The book has not been seriously critiqued.

(btw Judas, can you mention the source from which you quote)

baronci

25th July 2013, 04:15

Kautsky was basically the "founder" of political marxism, though that certainly doesn't absolve him of all faults. he also wrote somethings on colonialism that were totally bunk and of course came to embrace the 2nd international's reformism. i don't think anyone but Lenin ever pretended to like him.

Workers-Control-Over-Prod

25th July 2013, 06:05

What are your thoughts on him and are his works still relevant?

From what little Ive read about him (mainly in State and revolution + Reform or Revolution) he comes across as a particularly dishonest and sinister reformist. Still he appears to be a rather influential figure within both marxism and social democracy, so I was wondering if anybody knows some good (and accessible)works either on or by Kautsky?

In his Sects or Class Parties (http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1909/07/unions.htm), Kautsky defends the fundamental conclusions that classical Marxism theoretically advanced to: that the workers need their independent political party and that this party can only be Socialist.

Resolution of the International Workingmen's Association 1872:

"Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes.

This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end -- the abolition of classes.

The combination of forces which the working class has already effected by its economical struggles ought at the same time to serve as a lever for its struggles against the political power of landlords and capitalists.

The lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defense and perpetuation of their economical monopolies and for enslaving labor. To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes."

Kingfish

26th July 2013, 06:51

Thank you for all your responses, I thought there might have been something of substance to him.

Ismail

26th July 2013, 07:01

For what it's worth, the 1970's Great Soviet Encyclopedia provides the standard Leninist view of Kautsky:

Kautsky, Karl Born Oct. 16, 1854, in Prague; died Oct. 17, 1938, in Amsterdam. One of the leaders and theoreticians of the German Social Democratic movement and the Second International; an ideologist of centrism. At first a Marxist, but later became a renegade.

In 1874, while he was a student at the University of Vienna, Kautsky joined the socialist movement, and during this period he was close to Lassalleanism. At the end of the 1870’s, and especially after he became acquainted with K. Marx and F. Engels in 1881, he began to shift to Marxist positions. At that time Marx and Engels already noted in Kautsky such negative traits as pedantry and a penchant for scholastic argumentation. From 1883 to 1917, Kautsky was the editor of Die Neue Zeit, the theoretical journal of the German Social Democratic movement. During 1885–88 he lived in London, where he associated with Engels. In 1890 he moved to Germany. During the 1880’s and 1890’s he wrote a number of works and articles that propagated Marxist ideas, such as The Economic Doctrine of Karl Marx (1887; Russian translation, 1956), Thomas More and His Utopia (1888; Russian translation, 1905), Commentaries on the Erfurt Program (1892; Russian translation, 1956) and Precursors of Modern Socialism (vols. 1–2, 1895; Russian translation, vols. 1–2, 1924–25). Kautsky’s The Agrarian Question (1899; Russian translation, 1900) was favorably appraised by V. I. Lenin. However, even at that period Kautsky was making opportunistic errors. After E. Bernstein’s display of revisionism, Kautsky joined in the struggle against him, but only after prolonged vacillation. Kautsky’s book Bernstein and the Social Democratic Program (1899; Russian translation, 1906) in general played a positive role in the fight against revisionism, but it avoided the question of Bernstein’s revision of the Marxist doctrine of the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat. After the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903), Kautsky supported the Mensheviks.

Early in the 20th century Kautsky published a number of works that were written, despite individual deviations, in the spirit of revolutionary Marxism: for example, the article “The Slavs and Revolution,” printed in 1902 in Lenin’s newspaper Iskra, the pamphlets Driving Forces and Prospects of the Russian Revolution (1906–07; Russian translation, 1907, edited and with a foreword by V. I. Lenin), and The Road to Power (1909; Russian translation, 1959).

During the years preceding World War I, Kautsky departed even further from the revolutionary workers’ movement, following a line of reconciliation with the revisionists, supporting the liquidators in the Russian Social Democratic movement, denying the party spirit of Marxist philosophy, and so forth. In supporting anti-Marxist theories of violence, such as Social Darwinism, Kautsky attempted to demonstrate the compatibility of scientific socialism with non-Marxist philosophical systems. Kautsky became the ideologist of centrism, which combined a verbal acknowledgment of Marxism with an adaptation to opportunistic elements. With the beginning of the war Kautsky made a final break with revolutionary Marxism and justified the alliance with the overt social chauvinists.

Kautsky’s denial of the connection between the rule of monopolies and the predatory policy of the imperialist states, as well as his attempt to reduce imperialism to a variant policy of modern capitalism, as Lenin pointed out (Poln. sobr. soch., 5th ed., vol. 27, pp. 387, 409–20), led to his obscuring the radical contradictions characteristic of the monopoly stage of the development of capitalism. Just as apologetic and reformist was Kautsky’s theory of ultraimperialism, which falsely predicted the onset of a new phase constituting the peaceful development of capitalism and the elimination of its contradictions. Kautsky sowed pacifist illusions and in essence denied the inevitability of proletarian revolution. Kautsky was hostile in his attitude toward the October Socialist Revolution; he opposed the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat and defended bourgeois democracy. Kautsky’s desertion of Marxism was exposed by Lenin in his work entitled The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky (ibid., vol. 37, pp. 235–338).

In 1917, Kautsky took part in the establishment of the Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany. During the period of the November Revolution of 1918 he actually supported the counterrevolutionary policy of the Scheidemann group and opposed the establishment of friendly relations with Soviet Russia. While he took charge of a commission on socialization, Kautsky in fact pursued the line of preserving the capitalist structure in Germany. In 1922 he heralded the merger of the right wing of the “Independents” with the Social Democratic Party. He opposed the establishment of a unified workers’ front in the struggle against fascism. In 1924, Kautsky moved to Vienna. After the seizure of Austria by Nazi Germany (March 1938) he moved to Prague and later to Amsterdam.

Fred

26th July 2013, 14:18

Kautsky played a critical role in the collapse of the German SPD as a revolutionary party at perhaps the most important revolutionary junctio n in modern history. So while his writings and even his role in the SPD might have been laudable in earlier times, his failures were so profound and cost the world so much that it is very hard to see him in a positive light, imo. Not only did he not take a sharp enough stand against the reformists in the SPD -- at the start of WWI, he provided no opposition to voting for war credits. So at best he wound up being a right-wing Menshevik. The German revolution was postponed indefinitely and Kautsky bears a as much responsibility for this as any individual. So however august and wise his earlier polemics and writings may have been -- Kautsky, and to the extent that it exists, Kautskyism failed massively. And you have to question those that are trying to exhume his dusty corpse. Why? Certainly it is of some interest to revisit his writings and the struggles within the SPD and world movement at the time. But I think the attraction of Kautsky is precisely because he is not Lenin. Lenin being the bogeyman that actually fought against the reformists and led a proletarian revolution.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

26th July 2013, 14:35

Fred, that is nonsense. If you look at what writers like Lars Lih, the Kautsky-"revivalists" on revleft and the CPGB have been doing, it is exactly re-establishing the connection of Kautsky with Lenin.

We try to re-establish the true nature of Lenin's thoughts. Rethink the history of the working class movement.

The connection between Lenin and Kautsky is just as real as the influence Hegel's ideas had on Marx. This is a historical fact which one should not lie his way out of by framing that we just prefer someone who is not a "bogeyman".

This is historical dishonesty, it is dishonesty against Lenin's thought and most of all it is the perfect example of a strawman.

Ismail

26th July 2013, 18:51

The connection between Lenin and Kautsky is just as real as the influence Hegel's ideas had on Marx. This is a historical fact which one should not lie his way out of by framing that we just prefer someone who is not a "bogeyman".And it seems that just like Marx's relationship to Hegel, a significant amount of Kautsky's Marxism was turned upside down; the task of turning it up right being carried out by Lenin. But to compare Kautsky to Hegel is probably giving the former too much credit, since Hegel could not have been a Marxist and thus was not in any position to betray the working-class.

We try to re-establish the true nature of Lenin's thoughts. Rethink the history of the working class movement.But you aren't doing this just for historical exercise, the CPGB-PCC and others are obviously rehabilitating Kautsky to advance their own reformist and revisionist policies.

Fred

26th July 2013, 19:14

Fred

26th July 2013, 19:52

For those interested here is a link which covers the subject of "neo-kautskyism" quite well. A very good article.

http://icl-fi.org/english/esp/63/neo-kautskyites.html

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

26th July 2013, 20:03

Kautsky's influence on Lenin is notable. But as with Marx's break with Hegel, the most important thing in Lenin's political development is his sharp breaks with Kautksy's methodology. To pretend there is some kind of continuity flies in the face of the historical reality. I gotta agree with Ismail on this one.

Which is funny cause looking at how many times Lenin cites Kautsky "as a marxist" after August 1914. Which to me indicates Lenin did still appreciate Kautsky's works after 1914.

Ismail

26th July 2013, 20:16

Which is funny cause looking at how many times Lenin cites Kautsky "as a marxist" after August 1914. Which to me indicates Lenin did still appreciate Kautsky's works after 1914.He also appreciated Plekhanov's works after 1917 as well. In fact his praise for Plekhanov was a lot stronger than his praise for Kautsky. Like Kautsky, Plekhanov also denounced the October Revolution and held right-wing views on a number of issues. None of this is new, no one ever suggested that Kautsky wrote nothing of interest or influence or that his entire life was filled with treachery.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

26th July 2013, 20:21

He also appreciated Plekhanov's works after 1917 as well. He flat-out said that it was a duty for Marxists to study Plekhanov's works. I don't see your point.

No-one is as blind as he who refuses to look, I suppose.

My point is that we must seriously look at Kautsky and the second international and its influence on Lenin's thought if we seriously want to understand Lenin.

Ismail

26th July 2013, 20:22

My point is that we must seriously look at Kautsky and the second international and its influence on Lenin's thought if we seriously want to understand Lenin.By "seriously look at" you mean "pretend that Leninism is just an outgrowth of Kautskyism and that Kautsky > Lenin."

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

26th July 2013, 20:25

By "seriously look at" you mean "pretend that Leninism is just an outgrowth of Kautskyism and that Kautsky > Lenin."

Neither of the above,
Nice strawman though, I'm afraid, will you cite Hoxha and Soviet encyclopedia next?

Ismail

26th July 2013, 20:26

Neither of the above,
Nice strawman though, I'm afraid, will you cite Hoxha and Soviet encyclopedia next?Very well. What conclusions can we draw, then, from "seriously looking at" the relationship between Lenin and Kautsky, other than merely reconfirming what everyone has already known for the past 90 or so years?

Also I'll do you one better, I'll quote none other than Leon Trotsky:

As for Marxism, Kautsky, from the beginning of the war, behaved incontestably like a renegade. But as for himself, he was only half a renegade from his past, so to speak: when the problems of the class struggle were posed in all their acuteness, Kautsky found himself constrained to draw the final conclusions of his organic opportunism. Kautsky undoubtedly leaves behind numerous works of value in the field of Marxian theory, which he applied successfully in the most variegated domains. His analytical thought was distinguished by an exceptional force. But it was not the universal creative intelligence of Marx, of Engels, or of Lenin: all his life Kautsky was, at bottom, a talented commentator. His character, like his thought, lacked audacity and sweep, without which revolutionary politics is impossible. From the very first cannon-shot, he occupied an ill-defined pacifist position; then he became one of the leaders of the Independent Social Democratic Party which tried to create a Two-and-one-Half International; then, with the debris of the Independent Party he returned under the wing of the Social Democracy. Kautsky understood nothing of the October Revolution, showed the petty-bourgeois savant’s fright before it, and devoted to it not a few works imbued with a spirit of fierce hostility. His works in the last quarter of a century are characterized by a complete theoretical and political decline.

Rafiq

26th July 2013, 20:42

Very well. What conclusions can we draw, then, from "seriously looking at" the relationship between Lenin and Kautsky, other than merely reconfirming what everyone has already known for the past 90 or so years?

I think the problem is that kautsky's influence on Lenin, and when I say kautsky I mean the party model, revolutionary strategy and so on, is greatly under emphasized so much to the point that after forty or so years, this fact was nearly forgotten and the pre war SPD model was not even contemplated by Marxists. In short, not consciously, but passively, Marxists dismissed any modern significance pre war Kautsky can have within the context of a modern socialist movement. Okay, and when I say Kautsky, remember that includes Lenin and virtually all forerunners of what we call Communism today before the war.

Now firstly, Lenin was an outgrowth of Kautsky. That is inarguable. However, this is the classic case of the spirited student outdoing the conservative mentor in carrying out X legacy. After 1910, it became clear Lenin carried on the legacy of political class war in a way kautsky could not, because of Kautskys reluctance for change. Kautskys renege was a logical conclusion within a certain context of his pre war self, but so was Lenins break. The second international had to adapt, and several paths were layed out from this. Kautsky took the cowards path along with Bernstein and others.

Secondly, we Marxists should never de emphasize Lenin's radical break, which was the most significant event in the history of political class struggle. Lenins radical break brought about a new order in the midst, it is almost messianic, comparable to Christianity in a way. But this break could not occur without the prior influence of Kautsky.

Which brings me to my last point: We Marxists always today are attempting to make radical breaks, without a very context that would make it possible!

We should not replicate in an exact way the Bolshevik party today, the Bolshevik model was astronomically successful within the confines of Russia's conditions, conditions which are not present today. That is why we should look back at kautsky and the second international, not to catagorize Bolshevism as a mistake, but to build the political context from which something just as radical and cataclysmic as bolshevism can arise, when the moment is opportune. Orthodox Marxism is not necessarily Kautskyan, I for one completely oppose Kautsky in the same way Lenin did. Our aim now, as DNZ has said, is to take Lenin back from the Leninists (Leninism which is exclusively in the domain of post 1922, when the revolution was on it's way to degeneracy manifested in the scoundrel Trotsky and the gravedigger Stalin)

Ismail

26th July 2013, 20:58

Our aim now, as DNZ has said, is to take Lenin back from the Leninists (Leninism which is exclusively in the domain of post 1922, when the revolution was on it's way to degeneracy manifested in the scoundrel Trotsky and the gravedigger Stalin)It is precisely the task of gravedigging that Stalin excelled; in burying the Trotskyites, Bukharinites, and other renegades from the working-class movement he defended Leninism. It is why Khrushchev, Mao, Castro, and other revisionists attacked Stalin, and through their attacks waged war on Leninism.

Leninism is the domain of the Leninists themselves. Some RevLeft internet cult around an idiot and a bunch of "let's reimagine Marxism for the 21st century!" revisionists in Britain won't change that fact.

Hit The North

26th July 2013, 21:48

Lol at the simplistic argumentation around personality that this thread has suddenly degenerated into.

Whatever the merits of Kautsky's writing in helping to popularise Marxist ideas, the fact remains that the institutional manifestation of his political strategy, as embodied by social democracy, was an abject failure both in terms of opposing imperialist slaughter and leading the working class to revolution. This is the real absurdity at the heart of the so-called "revolutionary Marxist" tendency on Revleft: they are attempting to resurrect a failed counter-revolutionary mode of working class organisation.

Fred

29th July 2013, 16:18

I think that Rafiq is correct to say that the discontinuity between Lenin and Kautsky may have been overemphasized, to the point that any and all of Kautsky's contributions have been discarded. Okay, so there might be some use in re-examining the SI under Kautsky prior to WWI (or prior to 1907?). But what are the political motivations and appetites of the comrades that elevate Kautsky? I think they are highly questionable. Also, Lenin's break with Kautsky really began in 1903, although at the time it was not at all clear, even to Lenin. The split in the RSDLP was an uninteded repudiation of the practice of German Social Democracy.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

29th July 2013, 17:40

Hit The North

29th July 2013, 17:49

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

29th July 2013, 17:56

^^^ I think the point is that the Mensheviks were closer to the orthodox social democrat party model of a broad membership; whereas Lenin's arguments in WITBD represent a departure which only became properly distinct and took on political force with the crisis in 1914 and after.

It is no coincidence that the Mensheviks behaved exactly like the SPD when faced with a revolutionary situation: they collapsed into conciliation and cooperation with the bourgeois democracy.

A text which Lenin deemed party-history in 1907.

The fact that both behaved the same in 1914, which is not entirely accurate, is not proof that they were closer to it.

I would love to hear where you got all this info on the Menshevik party-structure, since I have been searching for books (http://www.revleft.com/vb/books-mensheviks-t181994/index.html) and I couldn't find all that much. So it is very surprising to hear you have a detailed analysis of the Menshevik party structure.

Fred

29th July 2013, 18:19

A text which Lenin deemed party-history in 1907.

The fact that both behaved the same in 1914, which is not entirely accurate, is not proof that they were closer to it.

I would love to hear where you got all this info on the Menshevik party-structure, since I have been searching for books (http://www.revleft.com/vb/books-mensheviks-t181994/index.html) and I couldn't find all that much. So it is very surprising to hear you have a detailed analysis of the Menshevik party structure.

I don't think comrade HTN is talking so much about party structure as such -- but about party activity, program and practice. The Mensheviks behavior in 1905 and 1914 was varied -- like the Bolsheviks, they had a left- and right-wing. It is hard to argue that Kautsky's practical response to the World War and Russian Revolution was better than, say Martov's. Because it was worse. But Martov represented the far-left of the Mensheviks.

I will try to be concise here -- perhaps I assume that you know more history than you do. . . . The split in the RSDLP in 1903 was over the definition in party membership. Certainly one could have argued at the time that this was not a matter to rend the organization over. WITBD begins to lay out Lenin's view of what the party should be -- that members should be professional revolutionaries. But in terms of political program, there was not much difference betweeen the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903. The Bolsheviks were able to lead the Russian Revolution in 1917 because they had built an organization that was not weighed down with the reformist flotsam and jetsam of the Mensheviks. They were able to take a clear and revolutionary stance against WWI from the beginning. The Germans, loaded down with reformist and centrist elements in 1914 collapsed and died as a revolutionary force. This history should be well known to you. Had the revolutionary wing of German Social Democracy split earlier and more decisively with the Kautsky's (and Bernsteins) it would have made a successful German Revolution much more likely.

Ismail

29th July 2013, 18:21

I would love to hear where you got all this info on the Menshevik party-structure, since I have been searching for books (http://www.revleft.com/vb/books-mensheviks-t181994/index.html) and I couldn't find all that much. So it is very surprising to hear you have a detailed analysis of the Menshevik party structure.Well, to begin with, the Short Course (http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1939/x01/ch02.htm) notes differing views on membership:

According to Lenin's formulation, one could be a member of the Party who accepted its program, supported it financially, and belonged to one of its organizations. Martov's formulation, while admitting that acceptance of the program and financial support of the Party were indispensable conditions of Party membership, did not, however, make it a condition that a Party member should belong to one of the Party organizations, maintaining that a Party member need not necessarily belong to a Party organization.

Lenin regarded the Party as an organized detachment, whose members cannot just enroll themselves in the Party, but must be admitted into the Party by one of its organizations, and hence must submit to Party discipline. Martov, on the other hand, regarded the Party as something organizationally amorphous, whose members enroll themselves in the Party and are therefore not obliged to submit to Party discipline, inasmuch as they do not belong to a Party organization.

Thus, unlike Lenin's formulation, Martov's formulation would throw the door of the Party wide open to unstable non-proletarian elements. On the eve of the bourgeois-democratic revolution there were people among the bourgeois intelligentsia who for a while sympathized with the revolution. From time to time they might even render some small service to the Party. But such people would not join an organization, submit to Party discipline, carry out Party tasks and run the accompanying risks. Yet Martov and the other Mensheviks proposed to regard such people as Party members, and to accord them the right and opportunity to influence Party affairs. They even proposed to grant any striker the right to "enrol" himself in the Party, although non-Socialists, Anarchists and Socialist-Revolutionaries also took part in strikes.

And so it was that instead of a monolithic and militant party with a clearly defined organization, for which Lenin and the Leninists fought at the congress, the Martovites wanted a heterogeneous and loose, amorphous party, which could not be a militant party with firm discipline because of its heterogeneous character, if for no other reason.And on Lenin's work One Step Forward, Two Steps Back:

Summing up his analysis of the differences, and defining the position of the Mensheviks as "opportunism in matters of organization," Lenin considered that one of the gravest sins of Menshevism lay in its underestimation of the importance of party organization as a weapon of the proletariat in the struggle for its emancipation. The Mensheviks held that the party organization of the proletariat was of no great importance for the victory of the revolution. Contrary to the Mensheviks, Lenin held that the ideological unity of the proletariat alone was not enough for victory; if victory was to be won, ideological unity would have to be "consolidated" by the "material unity of organization" of the proletariat. Only on this condition, Lenin considered, could the proletariat become an invincible force.Kautsky apparently gave his support to Menshevism in the years preceding 1914.

Hit The North

29th July 2013, 18:31

Brutus

29th July 2013, 19:09

"[...] it soon became clear that, when it came to the issues that really divided the two factions - the different readings of the class forces in Russia - Kautsky sided entirely with the Bolsheviks. So much so that Kautsky became a sort of honorary Bolshevik." - Lars T Lih.

"Concerning this passage Mr. Yollos writes the following: "I do not consider Bebel an authority on Russian affairs, but I must observe that in this part of his speech he differs favourably from Kautsky and several other doctrinaires who recommend Revolution in Permanenz" (uninterrupted revolution)." - Lenin (1906)

Ismail

29th July 2013, 19:57

Brutus

29th July 2013, 20:01

Lih deals with the topic here (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/895/lenin-kautsky-and-the-new-era-of-revolutions) and here (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/783/vi-lenin-and-the-influence-of-kautsky)

Dave B

29th July 2013, 22:14

Menshevik Party

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/m/e.htm

(http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/m/e.htm)

During the 1905-07 revolution the Mensheviks opposed the working class and peasantry who were in open revolt.
Lies

They believed that Socialism should only be achieved firstly through a bourgeois revolution.......... (via reformism (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/r/e.htm#reformism));

That was also the Bolshevik position.

See post 15;

http://www.revleft.com/vb/books-mensheviks-t181994/index.html

Whilst both the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks supported the idea of the mimimum programme, crypto reformism as far as impossibilists like myself are concerned.

Neither of them supported the Bernstein reformist road to socialism, both were implacably opposed to it.

As can be seen in Trotsky’s Menshevik pamphlet ‘Our Political Tasks’, particularly the last ‘missing’ chapter ‘Dictatorship Over The Proleteriat’

…….following this revolution, they felt the working class and peasantry would then be able to revolt against the bourgeois, and establish Socialism.

Again that was also (almost) the Marxist, Bolshevik and Menshevik position.

Except that the peasantry with the general progression of capitalism would become proletarianised as the simple commodity production of agriculture would gradually become converted to capitalist production.

After the successful bourgeois revolution of February 1917, most Mensheviks joined the provisional government (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/p/r.htm#provisional-government), strongly subscribing to the theory of Stagism (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/t.htm#stagism).
Originally the Bolsheviks had advocated ‘stageism’ and entering the stageist‘ provisional revolutionary government’ of the bourgeois democratic revolution essentially to guarantee its consummation ie the convocation of the constituent assembly.

The Mensheviks had opposed the idea of entering any ‘provisional revolutionary government’, eg according to Karl Radek (Bolshevik), as slippery slope to ‘Millerandism’ ; or reformism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Millerand

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Millerand)
In May of 1917 or whatever the Petersburg soviet asked leftist eg Mensheviks to join the next ‘provisional revolutionary government’ which some of them did. The Mensheviks split over it

The Bolsheviks were not asked to join the Provisional Revolutionary Government of May 1917 as they were suspected of being in the pay of the German capitalist class, which they were as it turned out.

The infamous Skobelev was one that joined; Lenin described the nature of this bourgious lackey and capitalist running dog as below;

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/16b.htm

(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/16b.htm)

After the October Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/events/o/c.htm#october-revolution-1917) the Mensheviks opposed the Soviet government, primarily through bureaucratic lobbying, though some members later joined the white armies (http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/w/h.htm#white-armies).

Lies

The Mensheviks did not join the white armies in fact many joined the red army.

http://www.korolevperevody.co.uk/korolev/abramovich01.htm

Fred

30th July 2013, 00:07

Menshevik Party

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/m/e.htm

(http://www.marxists.org/glossary/orgs/m/e.htm)
Lies

That was also the Bolshevik position.

See post 15;

http://www.revleft.com/vb/books-mensheviks-t181994/index.html

Whilst both the Mensheviks and the Bolsheviks supported the idea of the mimimum programme, crypto reformism as far as impossibilists like myself are concerned.

Neither of them supported the Bernstein reformist road to socialism, both were implacably opposed to it.

As can be seen in Trotsky’s Menshevik pamphlet ‘Our Political Tasks’, particularly the last ‘missing’ chapter ‘Dictatorship Over The Proleteriat’

Again that was also (almost) the Marxist, Bolshevik and Menshevik position.

Except that the peasantry with the general progression of capitalism would become proletarianised as the simple commodity production of agriculture would gradually become converted to capitalist production.

Originally the Bolsheviks had advocated ‘stageism’ and entering the stageist‘ provisional revolutionary government’ of the bourgeois democratic revolution essentially to guarantee its consummation ie the convocation of the constituent assembly.

The Mensheviks had opposed the idea of entering any ‘provisional revolutionary government’, eg according to Karl Radek (Bolshevik), as slippery slope to ‘Millerandism’ ; or reformism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Millerand

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandre_Millerand)
In May of 1917 or whatever the Petersburg soviet asked leftist eg Mensheviks to join the next ‘provisional revolutionary government’ which some of them did. The Mensheviks split over it

The Bolsheviks were not asked to join the Provisional Revolutionary Government of May 1917 as they were suspected of being in the pay of the German capitalist class, which they were as it turned out.

The infamous Skobelev was one that joined; Lenin described the nature of this bourgious lackey and capitalist running dog as below;

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/16b.htm

(http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/16b.htm)

Lies

The Mensheviks did not join the white armies in fact many joined the red army.

http://www.korolevperevody.co.uk/korolev/abramovich01.htm

Dave B. where Kautskyism and Menshevism neatly come together. Are you really retailing the lie that the Bolsheviks were German agents? That lie is so discredited you should be embarrassed by it.

The Mensheviks split over participating in the Provisional Government? Who where the Mensheviks that denounced this participation. What happened to them?

Your posts, besides being formatted as in the most annoying fashion contain truths, lies and half-truths. Yes, the Bolsheviks did not finally and completely abandon the idea of a two-stage revolution until Lenin returned to Russia. To that point, they had the formulation "for a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry." Upon his return from exile, Lenin basically came over to Trotsky's position of "Permanent Revolution," e.g., that even the basic democratic tasks, usually assigned to a bourgeois revolution could not be carried out in Russia without the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Bolsheviks, once righted by Lenin's return never gave any political support to the Provisional Government. The Mensheviks supported and then joined the Provisional Government. Then played a role in trying to crush the Bolsheviks after the 'July Days."

The call for a constituent assembly as the highest possible goal for the Russian Revolution became obsolete in February 1917. It became a rallying cry for counterrevolution after October.

Die Neue Zeit

30th July 2013, 03:21

Whatever the merits of Kautsky's writing in helping to popularise Marxist ideas, the fact remains that the institutional manifestation of his political strategy, as embodied by social democracy, was an abject failure both in terms of opposing imperialist slaughter and leading the working class to revolution. This is the real absurdity at the heart of the so-called "revolutionary Marxist" tendency on Revleft: they are attempting to resurrect a failed counter-revolutionary mode of working class organisation.

And how has the sect model been successful at opposing similar imperialist slaughter and leading the working class to revolutionary periods (hint: before the big r-r-r-revolutions)?

The independent class-institutional model is the most arduous but most effective means of proliferating genuine class consciousness, genuine class struggle, and social revolution. There ain't no such thing as a free political lunch!

Also, Kautsky didn't write much on the institutional model. It takes an observation of the Marxist Center, of what it organized (cultural societies, recreational clubs, and so much more) and wrote (mostly against competing models, not advocating its own), to arrive at the independent class-institutional model. Only now, when there are concrete examples such as SYRIZA, the PYD, and Hezbollah, both adhering to or opposing Marxist strategy, can there be irrefutable arguments to be made for.

Ismail

30th July 2013, 03:42

Upon his return from exile, Lenin basically came over to Trotsky's position of "Permanent Revolution," e.g., that even the basic democratic tasks, usually assigned to a bourgeois revolution could not be carried out in Russia without the dictatorship of the proletariat.Lenin pointed out many years earlier that the bourgeois-democratic revolution passes over into the socialist (i.e. proletarian) revolution, and that it does not stop half-way.

It's also worth noting that Lenin continued both privately and publicly to criticize Trotsky throughout the first few months of 1917. Thus:

"Trotsky's supporters... creat[ed] the impression that it was not Lenin's theory of socialist revolution, but Trotsky's 'permanent revolution' writings that constituted the basis of the Bolshevik Party's strategy and tactics of the October Revolution...

The Party's documents and the works of Lenin helped to destroy the myth of Trotsky's ideological kinship with the Bolshevik Party and Lenin from early 1917 on. Actually, Trotsky's activity in the USA, his writing for Novy mir, a newspaper of socialist émigrés from Russia, provided firm evidence that at the time Trotsky had joined the Rightist group and had together with them attacked the Bolsheviks and all Leftist supporters of Zimmerwald. That is precisely why, in a letter to A.M. Kollontai on February 17, 1917, Lenin urged exposure of Trotsky's subversive activity behind a screen of 'Left' talk.

Speaking subsequently at the Petrograd City Conference of the RSDLP(B) on May 5, 1917, Lenin sharply condemned the proposal put forward by some Party comrades to set up, during the municipal elections, a bloc of Bolsheviks and men like Chkheidze and Trotsky. Lenin told the conference: 'Who are we to form a bloc with?. . . Chkheidze is the worst screen for defencism. When publishing his paper in Paris, Trotsky failed to make clear whether he was for or against Chkheidze. We have always spoken out against Chkheidze, because he is a fine screen for chauvinism. Trotsky failed to dot his i's'.

In that period another document of Lenin's—a plan he wrote after May 6 for a pamphlet he intended to write about the April Conference—also urged the need to combat Trotsky's line. In the new conditions, he said, the Party's main task was to combat the petty-bourgeois vacillations in the coming revolution, which was bound to be a 'thousand times stronger than the February revolution'. Among those who expressed these vacillations, Lenin said, was Trotsky.

Before joining the Party, Trotsky had organisational links with the conciliators and opponents of Bolshevism. As for Trotsky's letters from the USA, they had nothing in common with Lenin's theory of socialist revolution. In his letters he re-asserted the fundamentally incorrect, anti-Party slogan of 'No tsar, but a workers' government', which meant a revolution without the peasantry, and a leaping over the stage of democratic revolution.

Lenin at once found it necessary to draw a line between his own and Trotsky's extremely adventurous stand. In his 'Letters on Tactics' (April 1917), he made a point of emphasising that Trotsky's slogan was wrong for it failed to reckon with the motive forces and the pace of the revolution. Lenin qualified the 'No Tsar, but a workers' government' slogan as a 'playing at 'seizure of power'', as a 'kind of Blanquist adventurism'."
(Ignatyev, V.L. (ed). The Bolshevik Party's Struggle Against Trotskyism in the Post-October Period. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1969. pp. 156-157.)

Hit The North

30th July 2013, 13:49

And how has the sect model been successful at opposing similar imperialist slaughter and leading the working class to revolutionary periods (hint: before the big r-r-r-revolutions)?

There's no such thing as "the sect model". You're making shit up.

The independent class-institutional model is the most arduous but most effective means of proliferating genuine class consciousness, genuine class struggle, and social revolution.

Except you can't point to a single example of where this kind of organisation has launched a revolution can you? In the face of revolution the mainstream of the Second International proved itself utterly cowardly and its best elements were forced to break with it and strike out in a revolutionary direction. That is the history of your "model" in a nutshell.

Fred

30th July 2013, 19:04

There's no such thing as "the sect model". You're making shit up.

Except you can't point to a single example of where this kind of organisation has launched a revolution can you? In the face of revolution the mainstream of the Second International proved itself utterly cowardly and its best elements were forced to break with it and strike out in a revolutionary direction. That is the history of your "model" in a nutshell.

That is what I keep thinking about the knuckleheaded notion of neo-Kautskyism. The "Party of the Whole Class," turns out to be a reformist swamp that plays a counterrevolutionary role. That is the model? At least the Bordigists and Leftcomms can argue that their model hasn't been tried. But Kautsky and the SI? By what positivie argument can you suggest that this is a good idea? That the Leninist left has been ineffectual? Well, that is not a positive argument.

Kautsky and the SPD didn't merely fail to lead the German revolution, they played a critical role in crushing it. WTF.

Dave B

30th July 2013, 21:12

Reply to post 33

Dave B. where Kautskyism and Menshevism neatly come together. Are you really retailing the lie that the Bolsheviks were German agents? That lie is so discredited you should be embarrassed by it.
The German funding of the Bolsheviks came out circa 1957 from German foreign office papers obtained after the second world war and investigated by acaedemics.

The Zeman book is composed almost entirely of German foreign office telegrams.

It needs to be read.

There are several mentions of German funding of the Bolsheviks but not all of the telegrams relate to this.

As the brief introduction to the book makes clear there was no intention to politicize the issue.

Just one quote picked a random is the one below.

GERMANY AND THE REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA 1915-1918

Documents from the Archives of the German Foreign Ministry

EDITED BY Z. A. B. ZEMAN

LONDON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

The State Secretary to the Foreign Ministry Liaison Officer at General Headquarters

TELEGRAM NO. I925

AS 4486 Berlin, 3 December 1917

The disruption of the Entente and the subsequent creation of political combinations agreeable to us constitute the most important war aim of our diplomacy. Russia appeared to be the weakest link in the enemy chain. The task therefore was gradually to loosen it, and, when possible, to remove it. This was the purpose of the subversive activity we caused to be carried out in Russia behind the frontâ€”in the first place promotion of separatist tendencies and support of the Bolsheviks.

It was not until the Bolsheviks had received from us a steady flow of funds through various channels and under different labels that they were in a position to be able to build up their main organ, Pravda, to conduct energetic propaganda and appreciably to extend the originally narrow basis of their party. The Bolsheviks have now come to power; how long they will retain power cannot be yet foreseen. They need peace in order to strengthen their own position; on the other hand it is entirely in our interest that we should exploit the period while they are in power, which may be a short one, in order to attain firstly an armistice and then, if possible, peace. 1 The conclusion of a separate peace would

mean the achievement of the desired war aim, namely a breach between Russia and her Allies. The amount of tension necessarily caused by such a breach would determine the degree of Russia's dependence on Germany and her future relations with us. Once cast out and cast off by her former Allies, abandoned financially, Russia will be forced to seek our support.

We shall be able to provide help for Russia in various ways; firstly in the rehabilitation of the railways; (I have in mind a German Russian Commission, under our control, which would undertake the rational and co-ordinated exploitation of the railway lines so as to ensure speedy resumption of freight movement), then the provision of a substantial loan, which Russia requires to maintain her state machine. This could take the form of an advance on the security of grain, raw materials, &c, &c, to be provided by Russia and shipped under the control of the above-mentioned commission. Aid on such a basisâ€”the scope to be increased as and when necessaryâ€”would in my opinion bring-about a growing rapprochement between the two countries.

Austria-Hungary will regard the rapprochement with distrust and not without apprehension. I would interpret the excessive eagerness of Count Czernin to come to terms with the Russians as a desire to forestall us and to prevent Germany and Russia arriving at an intimate relationship inconvenient to the Danube Monarchy. There is no need for us to compete for Russia's good will. We are strong enough to wait with equanimity; we are in a far better position than Austria-Hungary to offer Russia what she needs for the reconstruction of her state. I view future developments in the East with confidence but I think it expedient for the time being to maintain a certain reserve in our attitude to the Austro-Hungarian government in all matters including the Polish question which concern both monarchies so as to preserve a free hand for all eventualities.

jThe above-mentioned considerations lie, I venture to believe, within the framework of the directives given me by His Majesty. I request you to report to His Majesty accordingly and to transmit to me by telegram the All-highest instructions.

KUHLMANN

It had been raised before eg from m Bernstien, he wrote two articles on it in 1921 apparently, thus;

"From absolutely reliable sources I have now ascertained that the sum was very large, an almost unbelievable amount, certainly more than fifty million goldmarks, a sum about the source of which Lenin and his comrades could be in no doubt. One result of all this was the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. General Hoffmann, who negotiated with Trotsky and other members of the Bolshevik delegation at Brest, held the Bolsheviks in his hand in two senses [that is, military and monetary], and he made sure they felt it."Joel Carmichael in his1984 addendum of his edited and abridged etc version of “Sukhanov’s The Russian Revolution, 1917” puts it at $800 million, in 1984 money I presume.

The Mensheviks split over participating in the Provisional Government? Who where the Mensheviks that denounced this participation. What happened to them? Martov, the supposed party leader was strongly opposed to the idea but was in transit to Russia in May 1917. There were attempts I think to organise a party conference on the issue. It is difficult to assess the support for the idea amongst the Mensheviks. But I think at least a large minority of the Menshevik ‘party leaders’ were opposed to it.

Your posts, besides being formatted as in the most annoying fashion contain truths, lies and half-truths. Yes, the Bolsheviks did not finally and completely abandon the idea of a two-stage revolution until Lenin returned to Russia. To that point, they had the formulation "for a democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and peasantry."

Upon his return from exile, Lenin basically came over to Trotsky's position of "Permanent Revolution," e.g., that even the basic democratic tasks, usually assigned to a bourgeois revolution could not be carried out in Russia without the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin did not accept Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory in 1917, in fact he said it was bollocks!

Economic Dislocation and the Proletariat’s Struggle Against It
First published in Pravda No. 73, June 17 (4), 1917.

They evade these specific issues by advancing pseudo-intellectual, and in fact utterly meaningless, arguments about a "permanent revolution", about “introducing” socialism, and other nonsense. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jun/17.htm

The idea that Lenin finally came over to Trotsky’s permanent revolution theory, in fact in 1919, apparently comes from something Trotsky said Joffe said to Lenin. I think it is called hearsay;

Leon Trotsky My Life
CHAPTER XLII THE LAST PERIOD OF STRUGGLE WITHIN THE PARTY

Joffe told me of his conversation with Lenin – it took place in 1919, if I am not mistaken – on the subject of permanent revolution. Lenin said to him: “Yes, Trotsky proved to be right.” Joffe wanted to publish that conversation, but I tried my best to dissuade him. I could visualize the avalanche of baiting that would crash down upon him. Joffe was peculiarly persistent, and under a soft exterior he concealed an inalterable will. At each new outburst of aggressive ignorance and political treachery, he would come to me again, with a drawn and indignant face, and repeat: “I must make it public.” I would argue http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/mylife/ch42.htm

The Bolsheviks, once righted by Lenin's return never gave any political support to the Provisional Government. The Mensheviks supported and then joined the Provisional Government. Then played a role in trying to crush the Bolsheviks after the 'July Days."The soviets, as opposed to ‘just’ the Mensheviks and the Provisional Revolutionary Government, ‘sanctioned’ the Bolsheviks for their alleged attempt at an armed coup in July 1917.

(Some Bolsheviks were briefly arrested and imprisoned including Trotsky I think.)

Which was why the Bolsheviks, or at least Lenin and Stalin, ceased to support the Soviets in July.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jul/15.htm

http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/SEC17.html

The call for a constituent assembly as the highest possible goal for the Russian Revolution became obsolete in February 1917. It became a rallying cry for counterrevolution after October.

Lenin continued to support the convocation of the constituent assembly throughout most of 1917. And in fact Trotsky as a mouthpiece for the Bolsheviks justified the October coup as necessary to ensure the convocation of the constituent assembly.

With his “Long Live the Constituent Assembly”.

At last on 5 October the central committee bent to Lenin’s will and resolved, with only one dissenting voice – Kamenev’s, to withdraw from the Pre-Parliament on its first day. Trotsky succeeded in convincing the Bolshevik delegates to the Pre-Parliament that they should boycott this body – again with only one vote against.

On 7 October Trotsky read out a fighting statement at the Pre-Parliament. This was probably the first time he appeared as the main Bolshevik spokesman. Sukhanov describes the scene:………..

‘The officially stated aim of the Democratic Conference,’ Trotsky began, ‘was the elimination of the personal regime that fed the Kornilov revolt, and the creation of a responsible government capable of liquidating the war and promoting the convocation of a Constituent Assembly at the appointed time……………..

………. If the propertied elements were really preparing for the Constituent Assembly in a month and a half, they would have no grounds for defending the non-responsibility of the government now. The whole point is that the bourgeois classes have set themselves the goal of preventing the Constituent Assembly ...’

There was an uproar. Shouts from the right: ‘Lies!’

……….. The propertied classes, who provoked the uprising, are now moving to crush it and are openly steering a course for the bony hand of hunger, which is expected to strangle the revolution and the Constituent Assembly first of all.

‘Nor is foreign policy any less criminal. After forty months of war the capital is threatened by mortal danger. In response to this a plan has been put forward for the transfer of the government to Moscow. The idea of surrendering the revolutionary capital to German troops does not arouse the slightest indignation amongst the bourgeois classes; on the contrary it is accepted as a natural link in the general policy that is supposed to help them in their counter-revolutionary conspiracy.’

The uproar grew worse.

The patriots leaped from their seats and wouldn’t allow Trotsky to go on speaking. Shouts about Germany, the sealed car and so on. One shout stood out: ‘Bastard!’

……………………….The chairman called the meeting to order. Trotsky was standing there as though none of this were any concern of his, and finally found it possible to go on.

‘We, the Bolshevik fraction of the Social-Democratic Party, declare that with this government of national treachery and this “Council” we –’

The uproar took on an obviously hopeless character. The majority of the right got to their feet with the obvious intention of stopping the speech. The chairman called the speaker to order. Trotsky, beginning to lose his temper, and speaking by now through the hubbub, finished:

‘–……... We appeal to the people: Long live an immediate, honourable democratic peace, all power to the Soviets. All land to the people, long live the Constituent Assembly!’

All the Bolsheviks stood up and walked out of the assembly hall to the accompaniment of shouts ‘Go to your German trains!’

http://www.marxists.org/archive/cliff/works/1989/trotsky1/15-towards.html

Lenin in 1917 on the constituent assembly;

To Our Comrades in War-Prisoner Camp

Written in the middle of March 1917

The Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies insists on immediate convocation of the Constituent Assemblyhttp://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/mar/15.htm

The Seventh (April) All-Russia Conference of the R.S.D.L.P.(B.)
APRIL 24–29, 1917

Considering the above, the Conference resolves that:

1. Extensive work has to be done to develop proletarian class-consciousness and to unite the urban and rural proletarians against the vacillations of the petty bourgeoisie, for only work of this nature can serve as a sure guarantee of the successful transfer of the entire state power into the hands of the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies or other organs directly expressing the will of the majority of the people (organs of local self-government, the Constituent Assembly, etc.);

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/7thconf/27c.htm

REPORT AT A MEETING OF BOLSHEVIK DELEGATES TO THE ALL-RUSSIA CONFERENCE OF SOVIETS OF WORKERS’ AND SOLDIERS’ DEPUTIES APRIL 4 (17), 1917

I should be glad to have the Constituent Assembly convened tomorrow,

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/04d.htm

Political Parties in Russia and the Tasks of the Proletariat

Published in pamphlet form in July 1917 by Zhizn i Znaniye Publishers. Published May 6, 9 and 10 (April 23, 26 and 27), 1917 in the newspaper Volna Nos. 20, 22 and 23.

9) SHOULD A CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY BE CONVENED?

D. (“Bolsheviks”). Yes, and as soon as possible. But there is only one way to assure its convocation and success, and that is by increasing the number and strength of the Soviets and organising and arming the working-class masses. That is the only guarantee.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/x02.htm

Speech Delivered at a Meeting of Soldiers of the Izmailovsky Regiment April 10 (23), 1917

The central state power uniting these local Soviets must be the Constituent Assembly, National Assembly, or Council of Soviets—no matter by what name you call it.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/10.htm

An Open Letter to the Delegates to the All-Russia Congress of Peasants’ Deputies

Published May 24 (11), 1917

We by no means deny the right of the Constituent Assembly finally to institute public ownership of the land and to regulate its disposal.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/07b.htm

On the “Unauthorised Seizure” of Land
FLIMSY ARGUMENTS OF THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARIES
Published: Pravda No. 61, June 2 (May 20), 1917

The local peasants are to have the immediate use of these lands, which are to become the property of the people as a whole. Ownership will be finally decided by the Constituent Assembly (or the All-Russia Council of Soviets, should the people choose to make it the Constituent Assembly).

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/20b.htm

Constitutional Illusions

Published in Rabochy i Soldat Nos. 11 and 12, August 4 (August 5), 1917

The Constituent Assembly in Russia today will yield a majority to peasants who are more to the left than the Socialist-Revolutionaries. The bourgeoisie know this and therefore are bound to put up a tremendous resistance to an early convocation. With a Constituent Assembly convened, it will be impossible, or exceedingly difficult, to carry on the imperialist war in the spirit of the secret treaties concluded by Nicholas II, or to defend the landed estates or the payment of compensation for them. The war will not wait. The class struggle will not wait. This was evident enough even in the brief span from February 28 to April 21.

From the very beginning of the revolution there have been two views on the Constituent Assembly. The Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, completely swayed by constitutional illusions, viewed the matter with the credulity of the petty bourgeoisie who will not hear of the class struggle: the Constituent Assembly has been proclaimed, there will be a Constituent Assembly and that’s all there is to it!

Everything else is of the devil’s making. Meanwhile the Bolsheviks said: only the growing strength and authority of the Soviets can guarantee the convocation and success of the Constituent Assembly.

The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries laid emphasis on the act of law: the proclamation, the promise, the declaration to call a Constituent Assembly. The Bolsheviks laid emphasis on the class struggle: if the Soviets were to win, the Constituent Assembly would be certain to meet; if not, there would be no such certainty.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/jul/26.htm

Rumours of a Conspiracy

Written on August 18–19 (August 31–September 1), 1917

Our task now would be to take power and to proclaim ourselves the government in the name of peace, land for the peasants, and the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the appointed time by agreement with the peasants in the various localities, etc

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/aug/19.htm

They Do Not See the Wood for the Trees
First published in Proletary No. 6, September 1 (August 19), 1917

instead of giving the people a plain statement of the facts showing how brazenly, how shamelessly the Cadets had been delaying and blocking the convocation of the Constituent Assembly since March, and instead of exposing the false evasions and the assertion that it was impossible to convoke the Constituent Assembly at the appointed time, the Bureau of the Central Executive Committee promptly brushed aside all “doubts” expressed even by Dan (even by Dan!) and sent Bramson and Bronzov, two lackeys of that bureau of lackeys, to the Provisional Government with a report “on the need to postpone elections to the Constituent Assembly until October 28-29”.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/01.htm

The Bolsheviks Must Assume Power[1]
A Letter to the Central Committee and the Petrograd And Moscow Committees Of The R.S.D.L.P.(B.

Nor can we "wait" for the Constituent Assembly, for by surrendering Petrograd Kerensky and Co. can always frustrate its convocation. Our Party alone, on taking power, can secure the Constituent Assembly’s convocation; it will then accuse the other parties of procrastination and will be able to substantiate its accusations.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/14.htm

Lessons of the Revolution

The convocation of the Assembly, however, is being steadily postponed by the capitalists. Now that owing to Bolshevik pressure it has been set for September 30, the capitalists are openly clamouring about this being “impossibly” short notice, and are demanding the Constituent Assembly’s postponement. The most influential members of the capitalist and landowner party, the “Cadet”, or "people’s freedom", Party, such as Panina, are openly urging that the convocation of the Constituent Assembly be delayed until after the war.

ending the convocation of the Constituent Assembly there should have been no other power in the state but the Soviets. Only then would our revolution have become a truly popular and truly democratic revolution. Only then could the working people, who are really striving for peace, and who really have no interest in a war of conquest, have begun firmly and resolutely to carry out a policy which would have ended the war of conquest and led to peace. Only then could the workers and peasants have curbed the capitalists, who are making fabulous profits “from the war" and who have reduced the country to a state of ruin and starvation. But in the Soviets only a minority of the deputies were on the side of the revolutionary workers’ party, the Bolshevik Social Democrats, who demanded that all state power should be transferred to the Soviets. The majority of the deputies to the Soviets were on the side of the parties of the Menshevik Social-Democrats and the Socialist-Revolutionaries,

Not a single step of any importance to further the revolution was taken by the capitalist government during this period. It did absolutely nothing even to further its direct and immediate task, the convocation of the Constituent Assembly;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/sep/06.htm

The Tasks of the Revolution

First Published: 1917 in Rabochy Put Nos. 20 and 21, October 9 and 10 (September 26 and 27)

4. The Soviet Government must immediately declare the abolition of private landed estates without compensation and place all these estates under the management of the peasant committees pending the solution of the problem by the Constituent Assembly

7. A possibility very seldom to be met with in the history of revolutions now faces the democracy of Russia, the Soviets and the Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties—the possibility of convening the Constituent Assembly at the appointed date without further delays, of making the country secure against a military and economic catastrophe, and of ensuring the peaceful development of the revolution.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/09.htm

To Workers, Soldiers, and Peasants!
[October 25]

it will ensure the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the time appointed;

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/25-26/25b.htm

Letter to Comrades

Published in Rabochy Put Nos. 40, 41 and 42, November 1, 2 and 3 (October 19, 20 and 2

Is it so difficult to understand that once power is in the hands of the Soviets, the Constituent Assembly and its success are guaranteed? The Bolsheviks have said so thousands of times and no one has ever attempted to refute it. Everybody has recognised this "combined type",

Both the convocation and the success of the Constituent Assembly depend upon the transfer of power to the Soviets. This old Bolshevik truth is being proved by reality ever more strikingly and ever more cruelly.

will the famine agree to wait, because we Bolsheviks proclaim faith in the convocation of the Constituent Assembly?

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/oct/17.htm

Dave B

30th July 2013, 21:24

'sanctioned' was the wrong word

Fred

31st July 2013, 16:49

Ismail

31st July 2013, 17:34

As for the Permanent Revolution, Lenin went over to it in deed. He did not declare the Soviet Union to be a bourgeois republic. He did not install the Kadets in power. He led the Bolsheviks in taking power from the bourgeoisie, with a program aimed at ending capitalism. That IS the Permanent Revolution. Lenin's arguments against any support in the Provisional Government were arguments for the PR. So, Lenin came over to the PR and Trotsky came over to Lenin on the Party question. These were the issues that separated them prior to 1917, all polemical fireworks aside. One does not need to refer to Trotsky quoting Joffe quoting Lenin. Just review the historical facts.That's because the bourgeois-democratic revolution of February gave way to the socialist revolution of October. The former had created a unique situation of dual power between the weak Provisional Government (kept alive mainly through the opportunism and treachery of the Mensheviks) and the soviets (headed, initially, by said Mensheviks.)

The inability of the Provisional Government to consolidate its reactionary position, and the mass defection of workers from the appeals of the Mensheviks to those of the Bolsheviks, ensured the quick move from one revolution to the next.

At no point did Lenin credit Trotsky's theories with anything the Bolsheviks did that year. Nor, as far as I can see, did anyone else up until Trotsky's "Lessons of October" and the establishment of his faction within the party.

Dave B

31st July 2013, 20:15

You try to bolster your arguments with a veritable spewing of long quotes, some of which pertain and others that do not. Yes the Bolsheviks has a position in favor of the CA. The constituent assembly as it WAS convoked, was ready to dissolve the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Bolsheviks quite sensibly dissolved it. Duh let's make a revolution and let the non-proletarian elements vote it out of power. Cripes!
Communists do not elevate the form of constituent assembly above the immediate class interests of the proletariat. And it was a rallying cry, especially after the fact, for counterrevolutionaries.
The democratically elected constituent assembly sat for less than a day before it was closed by armed force by the Bolsheviks.It deferred the debate on its relationship to the sovietsand passed motions on an immediate armistice and an ending of the war and distribution of land to the peasants.The few Kadets were not allowed to sit.
The German gold stuff is bullshit and has been a dead letter among serious students of history for a very long time. I'm not sure why you want to revive it, except to pursue a very anti-communist perspective. I am not sure if I am moved to actually get some cites on this as it is such a lame thing to bring up. . . .
Which ‘serious students’ now reject the fact that the Bolsheviks received funding from their German state capitalist brothers?

The same lying Leninist historians that have told us about the Mensheviks and that Bolshevik Russia was not state capitalism?

As for the Permanent Revolution, Lenin went over to it in deed. He did not declare the Soviet Union to be a bourgeois republic. He did not install the Kadets in power. He led the Bolsheviks in taking power from the bourgeoisie, with a program aimed at ending capitalism.

Lenin did not have a programme for ending capitalism he had a programme for introducing capitalism (state capitalism) eg;

V. I. Lenin
"LEFT-WING" CHILDISHNESS
AND THE PETTY-BOURGEOIS MENTALITY. 1918

……….our task is to study the state capitalism of the Germans, to spare no effort in copying it and not shrink from adopting dictatorial methods to hasten the copying of it. Our task is to hasten this copying even more than Peter hastened the copying of Western culture

Page 340

http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/LWC18.html#s3

Of course state capitalism in a backward country is still capitalism.

V. I. Lenin
The Trade Unions, The Present Situation
And Trotsky’s Mistakes, 1920.

But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship.

It can be exercised only by a vanguard

http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

Leon Trotsky The Position of the Republic and the Tasks of Young Workers, 1922

………this is explicable in part by an incomprehension of an expression frequently used by us, that we now have state capitalism. I shall not enter into an evaluation of this term; for in any case we need only to qualify what we understand by it. By state capitalism we all understood property belonging to the state which itself was in the hands of the bourgeoisie, which exploited the working class. Our state undertakings operate along commercial lines based on the market. But who stands in power here? The working class. Herein lies the principled distinction of our state ‘capitalism’ in inverted commas from state capitalism without inverted commas.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1922/youth/youth.htm

That IS the Permanent Revolution. Lenin's arguments against any support in the Provisional Government were arguments for the PR. So, Lenin came over to the PR and Trotsky came over to Lenin on the Party question. These were the issues that separated them prior to 1917, all polemical fireworks aside. One does not need to refer to Trotsky quoting Joffe quoting Lenin. Just review the historical facts.

So is that is what the permanent revolution is then?

Dictatorial state capitalism of a party of the 1%.

.

Fred

1st August 2013, 01:33

Oh, yeah. QED:rolleyes:. The Permanent Revolution, for those out there that don't know, was a theory initially applied only to Russia, that the weak Russian bourgeoisie was so tied to the monarchy and foreign capital, that they could not carry out the central tasks of the bourgeois revolution (Agrarian reform, formal democracy). The Russian bourgeoisie was not like the French or English. They were far less strong and independent. Therefore in Russia, it would require the dictatorship of the proletariat directly to begin the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. That is the permanent revolution. It is not a program for the form of government after the revolution, as such. Later, Trotsky generalized this to other underdeveloped and neo-colonial countries, such as China.

And, as I recall, Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not turn power over to the bourgeoisie.
What you almost always forget is that the Bolsheviks were internationalists, above all else. They were looking to spark the revolution in other countries, particularly Germany. They looked beyond events in Russia. The Bolsheviks resorted to the "state capitalism" of the NEP because of the degree to which the country was devastated after WWI and the Civil War. These measures were considered necessary to avoid economic disaster and were not viewed as ends in themselves.

Lenin's point about the "party of the whole class" is just fleshing out his view about a proletarian vanguard party. What is your fucking point in quoting him? Do you think if you put up enough quotes that somehow, by osmosis, your point will be proven?

The CA was dominated by RIGHT SRs. It would have liquidated the revolution in no time flat. Kerensky, or more likely Kornilov would have been back in a matter of months.

The last quote from Trotsky is absolutely on the money. What the fuck does it have to do with any of your previous points?

You are a bonafide anticommunist, you don't clarify with quotes, you obfuscate. Ah, shit, you will just bombard this discussion with mountains of quotes taken out of context.

Die Neue Zeit

1st August 2013, 04:54

Fred

2nd August 2013, 02:15

I have been reading Luxembourg's The Russian RevolutionShe certainly has nothing but derision to heap upon old Karl. And she knew him well.

DNZ, I tend to agree with you on this one. But really, on the ground, it was pretty hard to make some of the extremely fine distinctions. The DD of the P&P was certainly not so good. But at least it indicated the intent of overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Kautsky wanted the Russians to stop after February. The joke is, there could not have been a stable democratic bourgeois republic in Russia. It was Kornilov or the Bolsheviks.

Hit The North

2nd August 2013, 15:40

Fred, the original slogan of Old Bolshevism, calling for a Revolutionary Provisional Government, made more sense than either bourgeois norms or soviet fetishes: http://revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-provisional-government-t163083/index.html

I can only echo Red Dave's response to you in the thread you link to:

So you say, DNZ. Anything to get away from workers power emanating from the workplace. You go for bureaucracy like my cat goes for tuna.

RED DAVE

I seriously doubt that one can create long-standing revolutionary institutions because the internal logic of any institution tends toward reproduction which becomes inherently conservative. The history of the major players within the Second International and the Comintern proves this.

But DNZ is consistent in his rejection of soviet power - a manifestation of the real active organisation of workers from below - in favour of the administrative and bureaucratic model of social democracy from above. A model which has resolved itself in the weakest reformism.

No wonder he prefers the older Bolshevik slogan of a Revolutionary Provisional Government- it invokes the active power of an institution rather than the active power of working people.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

2nd August 2013, 16:50

I have been reading Luxembourg's The Russian RevolutionShe certainly has nothing but derision to heap upon old Karl. And she knew him well.

Ok, so? Is Luxemburg always correct now?

Ismail

2nd August 2013, 18:23

Ok, so? Is Luxemburg always correct now?Are you seriously arguing that Kautsky, who winded up endorsing a government which carried out the murder of Luxemburg and also denounced the October Revolution, had a greater understanding of questions relating to revolution than a person who, among other things, forthrightly denounced the likes of Bernstein (whereas Kautsky initially vacillated) and who welcomed the October Revolution, combating much of the absurd slanders the bourgeoisie (and their apologists such as Kautsky) were making?

All I see from the RevLeft Kautsky fan club is an anti-materialist treatment wherein everything of Kautsky's pre-1914 is praised and everything post-1914 is treated as one of history's great aberrations that were totally not connected to anything concerning Kautsky and his theories beforehand.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

2nd August 2013, 19:53

Are you seriously arguing that Kautsky, who winded up endorsing a government which carried out the murder of Luxemburg and also denounced the October Revolution, had a greater understanding of questions relating to revolution than a person who, among other things, forthrightly denounced the likes of Bernstein (whereas Kautsky initially vacillated) and who welcomed the October Revolution, combating much of the absurd slanders the bourgeoisie (and their apologists such as Kautsky) were making?

Hmm, lost counts on the strawmens. But no I don't blindly take Luxemburg's word if that is your question

All I see from the RevLeft Kautsky fan club is an anti-materialist treatment wherein everything of Kautsky's pre-1914 is praised and everything post-1914 is treated as one of history's great aberrations that were totally not connected to anything concerning Kautsky and his theories beforehand.

Maybe you should look better since we see the seeds of what happened already growing before 1914. And we seek to know why this happened and to attack it where it was bad and support it where it was right. But this is very interesting coming from someone who thinks that the USSR was a great socialist state until Khrushchev came to power and then he magically restored capitalism.
Anti materialism :rolleyes:

Ismail

3rd August 2013, 00:05

Maybe you should look better since we see the seeds of what happened already growing before 1914. And we seek to know why this happened and to attack it where it was bad and support it where it was right.Then you're either blind or refuse to accept Lenin's analysis of Kautsky's renegadism and its origins.

But this is very interesting coming from someone who thinks that the USSR was a great socialist state until Khrushchev came to power and then he magically restored capitalism.I like how you rant against "strawmen" and then put this forward.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

3rd August 2013, 01:09

Then you're either blind or refuse to accept Lenin's analysis of Kautsky's renegadism and its origins.

Doubt I'll lose a night's sleep wondering whether that's true or not.

I like how you rant against "strawmen" and then put this forward.

Pointing out your hypocrisy.

Ismail

3rd August 2013, 01:26

Doubt I'll lose a night's sleep wondering whether that's true or not.Of course you won't, for you worship "21st century socialism." When Hoxha pointed out that those who did not defend Stalin were opportunists and cowards at best, he could not have anticipated persons who "defend" Lenin by attributing everything of worth in him to a renegade who, of course, does not have "stigma" of Kronstadt, the proletarian vanguard, or other aspects of Lenin's leadership that turn liberals away from him.

Instead you call for a so-called "mass party," just as the Italian revisionists and Eurocommunists did. This is the heart of your rehabilitation of Kautsky, collaboration with social-democracy and the submission of the communist movement to it.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

3rd August 2013, 01:32

Popular Front of Judea

3rd August 2013, 01:38

Looking up at the calendar, if I was Judas I would proudly say "Guilty as charged!" ;)

Of course you won't, for you worship "21st century socialism."

Brutus

3rd August 2013, 01:38

Of course you won't, for you worship "21st century socialism"
Never have I once seen Judas proclaim that the only way to power is to be elected, or that socialism can be attained by any other means than revolution.

Ismail

3rd August 2013, 01:39

Ismail

3rd August 2013, 01:40

Ok. So how do I by linking it to Lenin get rid off the "stigma"? If I did not want the "stigma" I would, uhm, you know, disregard him altogether.Except Lenin led the October Revolution, his prestige is in ample supply to be misused by revisionists and opportunists. After all, the Eurocommunists formally "praised" Lenin as well, while pretending that the principle of the vanguard and whatnot were supposedly unacceptable to Western Europe.

In private conversations (as Grenzer can confirm) DNZ has belittled Lenin and basically called him an idiot. Considering the vast majority of "Kautskyists" on RevLeft praise DNZ and seem to take their cues from him, that is a pretty good demonstration of how they "defend" Lenin.

Never have I once seen Judas proclaim that the only way to power is to be elected, or that socialism cannot be attained via revolution.I use the term in the sense that these people want to get away from the line of Lenin and Stalin, and they claim to "critically examine" history as a result of the events of 1989-1991, rather than confirm that the line of Lenin and Stalin was correct and the line of revisionism was disastrous.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

3rd August 2013, 01:48

Except Lenin led the October Revolution, his prestige is in ample supply to be misused by revisionists and opportunists. After all, the Eurocommunists formally "praised" Lenin as well, while pretending that the principle of the vanguard and whatnot were supposedly unacceptable to Western Europe.

In private conversations (as Grenzer can confirm) DNZ has belittled Lenin and basically called him an idiot. Considering the vast majority of "Kautskyists" on RevLeft praise DNZ and seem to take their cues from him, that is a pretty good demonstration of how they "defend" Lenin.

I don't praise DNZ when I don't agree with him, I don't think I've ever praised him at all to be honest with you. Nor do I ask him for cues when I'm writing a post. I can think for myself, thank you very much for your concern though.

Brutus

3rd August 2013, 01:53

I use the term in the sense that these people want to get away from the line of Lenin and Stalin, and they claim to "critically examine" history as a result of the events of 1989-1991, rather than confirm that the line of Lenin and Stalin was correct and the line of revisionism was disastrous.

If you are against critical examination and just “accept” this so-called line of Lenin and Stalin, that says more about you than about me or those people who want to "critically examine".

Ismail

3rd August 2013, 02:09

If you are against critical examination and just “accept” this so-called line of Lenin and Stalin, that says more about you than about me or those people who want to "critically examine".Except "critical examination" in this case means to depart from this line, just as the Soviet revisionists, Maoists, Castroists and others cited "material conditions" to justify their revisionism. It doesn't mean material conditions cannot produce different tactics, of course, just as it is possible to critically examine things. But this has nothing to do with the revisionist or opportunist ways of approaching these subjects, which seek to replace a proletarian line with a bourgeois line, no matter how much "left" cover is given to the latter.

Fred

3rd August 2013, 14:50

Of course you won't, for you worship "21st century socialism." When Hoxha pointed out that those who did not defend Stalin were opportunists and cowards at best, he could not have anticipated persons who "defend" Lenin by attributing everything of worth in him to a renegade who, of course, does not have "stigma" of Kronstadt, the proletarian vanguard, or other aspects of Lenin's leadership that turn liberals away from him.

Instead you call for a so-called "mass party," just as the Italian revisionists and Eurocommunists did. This is the heart of your rehabilitation of Kautsky, collaboration with social-democracy and the submission of the communist movement to it.
Ismail, you are on the money here, at least after the first comma. I have no affection for Hoxha, nor Stalin. But you are so right. These neo-Kaurskyites are all running scared from the Russian Revolution. They live in some parallel universe where Kautsky did not betray the international proletariat -- where the SPD did not vote war credits for the Kaiser's war, where they defended the Russian Revolution, and made the German Revolution. In their world, the SPD led the German and world proletariat to socialism.

It is a testimony to the absolute regression in political consciousness that these discussions even come up. Kautsky is not some theorist that simply wrote some interesting stuff. He was a central leader of the most powerful workers party in the world at the beginning of the 20th century. Stop looking so carefully at what he wrote and look at what he did. It was a DEBACLE!!!!!!!!! We are living with the world he helped create. I would say that his failure was far greater than Stalin's. In fact, it created the conditions that allowed Stalin to become so powerful.

Die Neue Zeit

7th August 2013, 04:51

DNZ, I tend to agree with you on this one. But really, on the ground, it was pretty hard to make some of the extremely fine distinctions. The DD of the P&P was certainly not so good. But at least it indicated the intent of overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Kautsky wanted the Russians to stop after February. The joke is, there could not have been a stable democratic bourgeois republic in Russia. It was Kornilov or the Bolsheviks.

Kautsky wrote The Russian Revolution in 1917, in which he didn't want them to stop after March, actually.

My Revolutionary Provisional Government model has nothing to do with RDDOTPP vs. PR, but rather the differing forms of government between councilism and a revolutionary cabinet model (whose formal and actual powers would exceed even those of a bourgeois War Cabinet). Constitutional drafting affairs should have belonged to mass organizations accountable to Sovnarkom, not the other way around.

Brotto RÃ¼hle

7th August 2013, 14:24

Kautsky was a pretty lame guy, and quite reactionary post 1914. That's not to say he wasn't already on the slippery slope of revisionism and bureaucracism before that, but we can point to 1914 as the defining moment when we knew he was a piece of shit. I believe Lenin, contrary to everyone else, said that "Rosa Luxemburg was right, LONG AGO" about Kautsky. Not that I care much for Lenin anyways, but we can tell how he grew away from even early Kautsky. I've recently started reading about the German revolution and German/Dutch Marxism, I'm a fan of Ruhle and Pannekoek. It's bringing a lot to light that I never knew. Oh yeah, the book is The German Revolution 1917-1921 by Pierre Broue.

I digress, we need to have perspective on Kautsky, recognize his contributions, as well as understand and hate everything else. Also, we must understand that Marxism is fluid, and it has to be applied to current material conditions...we can't just say "Kautsky said so, so it's right!"... Which seems to be the "Orthodox" Marxist perspective.

bad ideas actualised by alcohol

9th August 2013, 17:34

we can't just say "Kautsky said so, so it's right!"... Which seems to be the "Orthodox" Marxist perspective.

It isn't.

MarxSchmarx

10th August 2013, 07:56

Brutus

10th August 2013, 08:24

“In implementing its programme, however, in Kautsky’s view the workers’ party would use the existing state bureaucratic apparatus: this merely reflected the need of ‘modern society’ for professional administration. In this respect Kautsky in his most revolutionary phase had already broken from the democratic republicanism of Marx’s writings on the Commune and Critique of the Gotha programme and Engels’ arguments in Can Europe disarm?”

Excerpt From: Macnair, Mike. “Revolutionary Strategy"

So this is written by one of the people often referred to as "Kautskyites". Fred's statement of "Kautsky said it so it is correct" has proven itself to be utter bollocks.

Ismail

10th August 2013, 10:46

But many anarchists have come to peace with Kropotkin's inconsistencies. I merely find it rather curious, from a largely historical perspective, that the same sort of detachment never really occurred viz. Kautsky.Probably because anything conceivably good in the "pre-renegade" Kautsky was, as I said on the first page, turned upright by Lenin. Anything else was justly discarded.

Also Marxists don't deny that Kautsky, like Plekhanov, wrote works of interest; every Marxist summary of his life I've ever seen points out his early positive activities. The problem isn't pointing these out, it's using these activities (which also include their flaws and inconsistencies which helped to breed the renegade stage of his life) to advance a revisionist agenda. Consider Gramsci: the Italian Eurocommunists fixated on his writings as an alternative to "Stalinism" on one hand and the supposed "dogmatism" of the Soviet revisionist leadership of the 50's onwards on the other. Their interest was to use Gramsci's writings for their own ends, rather independent of what the content of those writings actually was.

Vladimir Innit Lenin

10th August 2013, 15:56

It isn't.

Perhaps in future you'll elaborate, rather than flagrantly breaking the new rules of the Learning forum.

Infraction issued for spam one-liner.

Fred

10th August 2013, 18:21

Lenin pointed out many years earlier that the bourgeois-democratic revolution passes over into the socialist (i.e. proletarian) revolution, and that it does not stop half-way.

It's also worth noting that Lenin continued both privately and publicly to criticize Trotsky throughout the first few months of 1917. Thus:

"Trotsky's supporters... creat[ed] the impression that it was not Lenin's theory of socialist revolution, but Trotsky's 'permanent revolution' writings that constituted the basis of the Bolshevik Party's strategy and tactics of the October Revolution...

The Party's documents and the works of Lenin helped to destroy the myth of Trotsky's ideological kinship with the Bolshevik Party and Lenin from early 1917 on. Actually, Trotsky's activity in the USA, his writing for Novy mir, a newspaper of socialist émigrés from Russia, provided firm evidence that at the time Trotsky had joined the Rightist group and had together with them attacked the Bolsheviks and all Leftist supporters of Zimmerwald. That is precisely why, in a letter to A.M. Kollontai on February 17, 1917, Lenin urged exposure of Trotsky's subversive activity behind a screen of 'Left' talk.

Speaking subsequently at the Petrograd City Conference of the RSDLP(B) on May 5, 1917, Lenin sharply condemned the proposal put forward by some Party comrades to set up, during the municipal elections, a bloc of Bolsheviks and men like Chkheidze and Trotsky. Lenin told the conference: 'Who are we to form a bloc with?. . . Chkheidze is the worst screen for defencism. When publishing his paper in Paris, Trotsky failed to make clear whether he was for or against Chkheidze. We have always spoken out against Chkheidze, because he is a fine screen for chauvinism. Trotsky failed to dot his i's'.

In that period another document of Lenin's—a plan he wrote after May 6 for a pamphlet he intended to write about the April Conference—also urged the need to combat Trotsky's line. In the new conditions, he said, the Party's main task was to combat the petty-bourgeois vacillations in the coming revolution, which was bound to be a 'thousand times stronger than the February revolution'. Among those who expressed these vacillations, Lenin said, was Trotsky.

Before joining the Party, Trotsky had organisational links with the conciliators and opponents of Bolshevism. As for Trotsky's letters from the USA, they had nothing in common with Lenin's theory of socialist revolution. In his letters he re-asserted the fundamentally incorrect, anti-Party slogan of 'No tsar, but a workers' government', which meant a revolution without the peasantry, and a leaping over the stage of democratic revolution.

Lenin at once found it necessary to draw a line between his own and Trotsky's extremely adventurous stand. In his 'Letters on Tactics' (April 1917), he made a point of emphasising that Trotsky's slogan was wrong for it failed to reckon with the motive forces and the pace of the revolution. Lenin qualified the 'No Tsar, but a workers' government' slogan as a 'playing at 'seizure of power'', as a 'kind of Blanquist adventurism'."
(Ignatyev, V.L. (ed). The Bolshevik Party's Struggle Against Trotskyism in the Post-October Period. Moscow: Progress Publishers. 1969. pp. 156-157.)
Sorry for the delay on getting back on this. A couple of issues -- First, in early 1917 Lenin could not possibly have been talking about October.

Second, Lenin's objection to Trotsky was that he had not, to that point to Lenin's knowledge, taken a clear stance on the Mensheviks. By May, Trotsky had made up his mind -- he had already split from the Mensheviks completely and was ready to make common cause with the Bolsheviks.

Third, there is no such thing as a workers' and peasant's government. These are two alien classes. Trotsky's formulation of a "dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the peasantry" was clearer and more precise than Lenin's. And what did the Bolsheviks actually do? The created the dictatorship of the proletariat. So Lenin's out-of-context protestations don't seem very important when he himself pushed for the October Revolution more impatiently than any of the other Bolshevik leaders. And Trotsky wrote "Tasks and Prospects" with Parvus in 1905 -- putting forward what was later called the "Theory of Permanent Revolution."

Fourth, your sources are all over the place -- was Trotsky a vacillating right-wing opportunist or an ultra-left adventurist? It's like when Stalin and his followers were calling Trotsky an agent of the Mikado and US imperialism at the same time (oh, and an ultra-left terrorist, too). You can't have it every which way. If you just sling enough mud, maybe something will stick, eh?

Trotsky abandoned his position as a "conciliator" by 1917. I don't really see what this has to do with the price of tea in China. Trotsky acknowledged this mistake. He certainly was never "soft" on the Mensheviks from 1917 on.

Finally comrade, the source you are using for your information here is dubious, at best. A hack writing for Moscow in the 1960s isn't exactly the best source for information on Trotsky. The Stalinst publishing houses were never particularly committed to niceties like accuracy when attacking Trotsky.

Art Vandelay

11th August 2013, 05:17

I want to throw one thing into the mix here.

One thing I've never understood about the denigration of Kautsky is why the same level of vitriol is rarely directed against Kropotkin, who for all practical purposes held the same pro-entente positions analogous to the position Kautsky took. Perhaps part of it has to do with the fact that Marxists consider Kropotkin outside of the mainstream anyway and so have very little use for him.

But many anarchists have come to peace with Kropotkin's inconsistencies. I merely find it rather curious, from a largely historical perspective, that the same sort of detachment never really occurred viz. Kautsky.

That's actually a really interesting point and honestly I've never made that connection before. Its interesting to think why Kropotkin and Kautsky's legacy's are so different in their specific traditions, given their relatively similar positions on WWI. Part of it certainly has to do with the fact that Kautsky's legacy is so much more treacherous, given his actions. Quite frankly and as I'm sure you are more then aware, no one denies that Kautsky ultimately served the reaction later in life. But the point has already been raised, even by Fred someone completely on the anti-Kautsky side of the debate, that the link between Kautsky and Lenin has been practically completely wiped from the history books. I don't see what's so hard to understand why its important, especially given the left's irrelevancy, to go back and truly take a new and objective look at our history. The link between Kautsky and Lenin is there, what is important is find out what lead to Kautsky's eventually downfall, his inability to make a strategic break within the party as Lenin did (regardless of whenever you think that break happened, although it is of my opinion that a complete split came much later the 1903).

Tower of Bebel

11th August 2013, 13:36

I don't see what's so hard to understand why its important, especially given the left's irrelevancy, to go back and truly take a new and objective look at our history. The link between Kautsky and Lenin is there, what is important is find out what lead to Kautsky's eventually downfall, his inability to make a strategic break within the party as Lenin did.
I think that the problem is this: you're sort of not allowed to go back. However much this seems to be an ideological issue ("Trotsky's formulation was clearer and more precise than Lenin's", so why are the DNZ-ites going back to Kautsky?), this ideological response emanates from structural problems. Though capitalism does it in the technological sense, the movement we're part of does not (want to) provide us the tools to perform a free and honest critical self-evaluation.

The means for exchange, discussion and debate are out there, but in many cases there's an ideological leadership, an ideological barrier barring us from the free use of it. I know I'm bending the stick, but I'm trying to make a point here. The ideological response we usually get from forums like this one seem to me more or less a reflection of the stiff reaction you get from the various groups that make up the movement we're part of.

I mean, Kautsky means nothing to me. Kautskyism even less. His articles can be as grey and as dry as his beard. He's just a key with which I can open hidden doors that lead me to pieces of our past. But if even a mention of his name leads to reactions such as: 'why read Kautsky when you should read Trotsky?', then it suddenly starts to get a meaning...

EDIT: All of this also means that in my opinion going back to Kautsky is not important. At least not in itself. There are definately other sources that explain Lenin's ideas and Marxism in general for that matter. But to be able to do this, to be in a situation in which you're not barred from an honest, critical discussion - whether organizationally, ideologically or even physically - is important.

Fred

11th August 2013, 14:01

I want to throw one thing into the mix here.

One thing I've never understood about the denigration of Kautsky is why the same level of vitriol is rarely directed against Kropotkin, who for all practical purposes held the same pro-entente positions analogous to the position Kautsky took. Perhaps part of it has to do with the fact that Marxists consider Kropotkin outside of the mainstream anyway and so have very little use for him.

But many anarchists have come to peace with Kropotkin's inconsistencies. I merely find it rather curious, from a largely historical perspective, that the same sort of detachment never really occurred viz. Kautsky.

Kropotkin certainly catches some heat from folks like Lenin and Trotsky in their writings, but frankly, he was not nearly as important as Kautsky. Kautsky, and the SPD played a pivotal role in the international workers movement. Kropotkin, not so much. Sadly, the SPD "pivoted" the wrong way and the cost of that betrayal is unmeasurably large. Also, Kautsky maintained some authority with sections of the working class after 1917 and used that to attack the Russian Revolution. And the SPD made counterrevolution in Germany. I think Kautsky's resume as "renegade" is way more impressive (and historically significant). Kautsky's inconsistencies ushered in WWI and fostered counterrevolution after the war.

Ismail

12th August 2013, 17:21

Sorry for the delay on getting back on this. A couple of issues -- First, in early 1917 Lenin could not possibly have been talking about October....You seem to have missed the point of the quote. You claimed Lenin adopted Trotsky's positions. I pointed out that as late as May 1917 he was criticizing Trotsky. At no point from 1917 onwards did he ever uphold Trotsky's "permanent revolution" theory or credit it with anything, a theory which in 1914 he called absurdly left. Lenin explicitly warned against skipping stages, while upholding the fact that there was no Chinese wall in between them and that the bourgeois-democratic stage passes over into the proletarian stage.

The issue is not Trotsky's attitude to Menshevism (although the Mensheviks certainly praised him in his struggle against Stalin), the issue is him appropriating Lenin's legacy and the October Revolution itself in order to bolster his own standing within the Party.

Fourth, your sources are all over the place -- was Trotsky a vacillating right-wing opportunist or an ultra-left adventurist? It's like when Stalin and his followers were calling Trotsky an agent of the Mikado and US imperialism at the same time (oh, and an ultra-left terrorist, too). You can't have it every which way. If you just sling enough mud, maybe something will stick, eh?Stalin answered this in 1937: at one point in time Trotskyism was a right-wing tendency within the working-class masked in "left" phraseology. By 1934, however, it had effectively become a weapon in the hands of anti-communism and its most prominent spokesmen in the USSR agents of foreign powers.

Also Trotsky was never called an agent of US imperialism at the Moscow Trials or by Stalin. Afterwards, however, he did vow to testify to the Dies Committee (predecessor to the HUAC) and established contact with the FBI (http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm).

Finally comrade, the source you are using for your information here is dubious, at best. A hack writing for Moscow in the 1960s isn't exactly the best source for information on Trotsky. The Stalinst publishing houses were never particularly committed to niceties like accuracy when attacking Trotsky.And this is irrelevant because the entire quote relies on Lenin's own words.

I don't see what's so hard to understand why its important, especially given the left's irrelevancy, to go back and truly take a new and objective look at our history.All sorts of studies are being done on the USSR. These are far more relevant than rehabilitating a renegade to justify reformism.

Brutus

12th August 2013, 18:12

Ismail

12th August 2013, 18:17

How is going back to look at kautsky justifying reformism? Are you seriously saying that looking at pet ownership in the USSR is more important than objectively reassessing the so called "pope of Marxism"?Are you seriously saying that research into the USSR has been geared towards pet ownership?

And again, the issue is not "reassessing" Kautsky, it is rehabilitating that which led to his renegadism in order to justify reformism, just as the Italian Eurocommunists "reassessed" Gramsci so that they could use him against Marxism-Leninism.

Art Vandelay

12th August 2013, 18:20

All sorts of studies are being done on the USSR. These are far more relevant than rehabilitating a renegade to justify reformism.

If you don't have anything substantive to add, then just don't post, its really as simple as that. There isn't anything for me to respond to here, cause your post contains no substance.

You have neither made mention of any of the 'all sorts of studies that are being done on the USSR,' nor how simply taking a new look at Kautsky justifies reformism. Although quite frankly, after all this time Ismail, I've grown to expect nothing less.

Ismail

12th August 2013, 18:27

You have neither made mention of any of the 'all sorts of studies that are being done on the USSR,'In a few weeks J. Arch Getty's new book Practicing Stalinism comes out. That alone is of interest, not to mention the multitude of other works on all sorts of aspects of Soviet life, economics, education, foreign policy, and so on. Your ignorance does not change this fact.

nor how simply taking a new look at Kautsky justifies reformism.And once again, the "new look" is, in fact, an attempt to rehabilitate him. Mike Macnair and Lars Lih have political motivations in producing such a "new look."

Again, as I said on the first page, what conclusions can be drawn by this "new look" at Kautskyism? Are the archives looked into in order to demonstrate the correctness of Lenin's words, to gain a greater understanding of the basis of Kautsky's renegadism and thus enrich our understanding of Lenin's struggle against Kautskyism and all other forms of opportunism? Or is it to rehabilitate the so-called "mass party," to defend bourgeois coalitions like Die Linke and SYRIZA under the banner of overcoming the so-called "irrelevance of the left," using the character and justly tarnished reputation of Kautsky to build an "orthodox Marxist" bridge to such things?

Fred

12th August 2013, 19:02

You seem to have missed the point of the quote. You claimed Lenin adopted Trotsky's positions. I pointed out that as late as May 1917 he was criticizing Trotsky. At no point from 1917 onwards did he ever uphold Trotsky's "permanent revolution" theory or credit it with anything, a theory which in 1914 he called absurdly left. Lenin explicitly warned against skipping stages, while upholding the fact that there was no Chinese wall in between them and that the bourgeois-democratic stage passes over into the proletarian stage.

The issue is not Trotsky's attitude to Menshevism (although the Mensheviks certainly praised him in his struggle against Stalin), the issue is him appropriating Lenin's legacy and the October Revolution itself in order to bolster his own standing within the Party.

Stalin answered this in 1937: at one point in time Trotskyism was a right-wing tendency within the working-class masked in "left" phraseology. By 1934, however, it had effectively become a weapon in the hands of anti-communism and its most prominent spokesmen in the USSR agents of foreign powers.

Also Trotsky was never called an agent of US imperialism at the Moscow Trials or by Stalin. Afterwards, however, he did vow to testify to the Dies Committee (predecessor to the HUAC) and established contact with the FBI (http://revolutionarydemocracy.org/rdv3n2/trotsky.htm).

And this is irrelevant because the entire quote relies on Lenin's own words.

All sorts of studies are being done on the USSR. These are far more relevant than rehabilitating a renegade to justify reformism.

No comrade, you are trying to have it every which way. In fact you are quoting ostensibly damning statements against Trotsky and when I respond, you say the point (at least of the quote) doesn't matter. As for not being called an agent of imperialist powers, do I have to search and find some of the official anti-Trotsky propaganda. Plus even the content of the Moscow trials linked all manner of Bolshevik leaders to foreign powers -- almost all of it 100% made up.

You have never answered my point that the Bolsheviks carried out "The Permanent Revolution," in October 1917. I don't care if I can't find a quote from Lenin saying "Trotsky was right," because in DEED, he was involved in carrying it out. And if you argue that the Russian Revolution was actually a "Two-Stage" revolution, well it's silly. Do you really think that in 8.5 months Russia went through an epoch of capitalism. The Provisional government was truly just that (in Russian the word "provisional" means temporary). It was never stable, and never really established itself. And again Trotsky wrote about the PR in 1905. So the idea that he was appropriating Lenin is simply false.

And "relies" is an important modifier -- it is not a quote from Lenin, but paraphrasing from a Stalinst "historian." In any case, I know that you can find some isolated quotes from Lenin that are hostile to Trotsky. It means very little considering how closely the collaborated after 1917. All the disgusting smears against Trotsky are just so much BS, crafted over decades by Stalin's apologists.

Ismail

12th August 2013, 19:19

As for not being called an agent of imperialist powers, do I have to search and find some of the official anti-Trotsky propaganda. Plus even the content of the Moscow trials linked all manner of Bolshevik leaders to foreign powers -- almost all of it 100% made up.I said the Soviets never spoke of Trotsky being an agent of US imperialism at these trials. Trotskyists being agents of the Nazi Germans, Japanese, British and Poles yes, American no.

And if you argue that the Russian Revolution was actually a "Two-Stage" revolution, well it's silly. Do you really think that in 8.5 months Russia went through an epoch of capitalism. The Provisional government was truly just that (in Russian the word "provisional" means temporary). It was never stable, and never really established itself.That was because of the situation of dual power existing between the provisional government and the soviets.

You also seem to have forgotten that Lenin noted capitalism already existed in Russia, that was the whole point of his arguments against the Narodniks and whatnot in the last years of the 19th century. That the vast majority of Russia lived in conditions of medievalism, as he put it, did not change the fact that capitalism was no stranger to the country. The existence and consolidation of the proletariat in various industrial areas was an example of this.

And again Trotsky wrote about the PR in 1905. So the idea that he was appropriating Lenin is simply false.It is the Trotskyists who claim that Lenin, in effect, became a Trotskyist and carried out Trotsky's program in practice. As you're doing.

Brutus

12th August 2013, 19:39

I'm sorry Ismail, but are you claiming that Trotsky- Lev Bronstein - who was a Jew, collaborated with the Nazi's?

Ismail

12th August 2013, 19:44

I'm sorry Ismail, but are you claiming that Trotsky- Lev Bronstein - who was a Jew, collaborated with the Nazi's?The Germans collaborated with all sorts of Slavs during WWII, I don't see the issue. Trotsky being a Jew had nothing to do with anything unless you're going to suggest that German intelligence, the armed forces, etc. would never under any circumstances interact with persons who are coincidentally Jews to further their own aims.

Art Vandelay

12th August 2013, 19:47

This is all off topic, the stuff on Trotsky should be split. Anyone who can string a few brain cells together knows that Trotsky and those politically organized around him leading up to his death, had no collaboration with the Nazi's.

Popular Front of Judea

12th August 2013, 22:17

It wouldn't be at all surprising to find out a 'rootless cosmopolitan' collaborated with the Germans, right Ismail?

The Germans collaborated with all sorts of Slavs during WWII, I don't see the issue. Trotsky being a Jew had nothing to do with anything unless you're going to suggest that German intelligence, the armed forces, etc. would never under any circumstances interact with persons who are coincidentally Jews to further their own aims.

Brutus

12th August 2013, 22:25

My reasoning, Ismail, being that Trotsky (who wrote a pamphlet giving a detailed explanation of fascism and how we must fight it, and was Jewish) wouldn't collaborate with Nazis.

Fred

12th August 2013, 22:38

I said the Soviets never spoke of Trotsky being an agent of US imperialism at these trials. Trotskyists being agents of the Nazi Germans, Japanese, British and Poles yes, American no.

Ah. A trivial detail that does nothing to detract from my point.

That was because of the situation of dual power existing between the provisional government and the soviets.

Ding ding ding. That is correct -- and your point is. . . ?

You also seem to have forgotten that Lenin noted capitalism already existed in Russia, that was the whole point of his arguments against the Narodniks and whatnot in the last years of the 19th century. That the vast majority of Russia lived in conditions of medievalism, as he put it, did not change the fact that capitalism was no stranger to the country. The existence and consolidation of the proletariat in various industrial areas was an example of this.

This is also beside the point that there was no period of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie that was stable -- and that indeed, the brief unstable period after Februrary would be resolved either by proletarian revolution and the establishment of the d of the p, or a return to the Tsar or complete foreign domination. The Bolsheviks led the proletarian October Revolution, putting the PR into effect.

It is the Trotskyists who claim that Lenin, in effect, became a Trotskyist and carried out Trotsky's program in practice. As you're doing.
Ismail, you've been listening! Yes we claim that Lenin came around to the PR and the Trotsky came around to Lenin's view of the vanguard party.

BTW, to get back to the OP, your points about Kautsky are well taken. There is no problem in wanting to review what he wrote or said. But one does have to question what are the political motives behind "rehabilitating" him.

Ironically, this is not dissimilar with your blindness to Lenin's actually helping to carry out the PR in Russia. I think the "word" is important, but the "deed" is more important.

Zederbaum

12th August 2013, 23:34

Its interesting to think why Kropotkin and Kautsky's legacy's are so different in their specific traditions, given their relatively similar positions on WWI. Part of it certainly has to do with the fact that Kautsky's legacy is so much more treacherous, given his actions.

There is no similarity to Kropotkin's and Kautsky's position on the war. in 1914 Kautsky wanted the party to abstain in the vote for war credits. That was a total non-runner so he then proposed to them that they introduce an amendment that would have made a vote for them conditional on it being a purely defensive war.

The latter move was an old SPD tactic of introducing an amendment that they knew would be rejected by the government thereby giving them space to vote against a popular measure.

In short Kautsky was against the war and one of the leaders of the anti-war tendency within the SPD. At the start of the war, when the majority pursued a policy of collaboration, he maintained party discipline — as did Liebknecht of course — and didn't articulate publicly his own position as well as calling for party unity and the postponement of public debate on the decision.

Plus, for larger theoretical reasons, he was extremely skeptical of splitting with the majority, even after the anti-war position began to be articulated publicly, i.e. after Liebknecht's vote in late 1914 and the Haase/Bernstein/Kautsky document in 1915.

Even Lenin makes the refusal to split the principle charge against him and Haase and the rest, i.e. that they were providing cover for the Majority SPD.

Not only was Kautsky against the war, he had a congenital dislike of the Kaiserreich. If anything he was too indulgent of Britain and its ostensible liberalism.

Kropotkin on the other hand was a Francophile and an adamant supporter of the Entente side in the war and even after he returned to Russia in 1917 made speeches in favour of continuing in it.

Quite frankly and as I'm sure you are more then aware, no one denies that Kautsky ultimately served the reaction later in life.
I totally deny it. Have you read any of Kautsky's later work? It's actually quite good, the Labour Revolution in particular is well worth a read. If anything, it's more relevant to us in the advanced capitalist countries because he is now writing in states of a similar nature to ours. Prior to 1918 he was writing in a context where ancient absolutist regimes were dominant on the continent.

Ismail

13th August 2013, 02:28

It wouldn't be at all surprising to find out a 'rootless cosmopolitan' collaborated with the Germans, right Ismail?Probably not, the rootless cosmopolitans were infatuated with countries like the USA and Britain and saw the anti-fascist alliance between the USSR and those states during the war as an opening for bourgeois culture in Soviet society.

See: http://ml-review.ca/aml/CommunistLeague/COSMOPOLITANISM-COMPASS131-1998.HTM

Ah. A trivial detail that does nothing to detract from my point.It completely demolishes your point that I was supposedly denying that the Moscow Trials pointed to various Trotskyists (including Trotsky himself) as acting of agents of foreign imperialist powers.

Ding ding ding. That is correct -- and your point is. . . ?... that this situation was why the bourgeois-democratic period could be as short as it was.

This is also beside the point that there was no period of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie that was stable -- and that indeed, the brief unstable period after Februrary would be resolved either by proletarian revolution and the establishment of the d of the p, or a return to the Tsar or complete foreign domination. The Bolsheviks led the proletarian October Revolution, putting the PR into effect.Lenin pointed out in his Letters on Tactics that "reality shows us both the passing of power into the hands of the bourgeoisie (a 'completed' bourgeois-democratic revolution of the usual type) and, side by side with the real government, the existence of a parallel government which represents the 'revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry'. This 'second-government' has itself ceded the power to the bourgeoisie, has chained itself to the bourgeois government. Is this reality covered by Comrade Kamenev's old-Bolshevik formula, which says that 'the bourgeois-democratic revolution is not completed'? It is not. The formula is obsolete." (Collected Works Vol. 24, 1974, p. 50.)

Hence, the Menshevik (i.e. opportunist) leadership of the soviets was preventing the move from the bourgeois-democratic revolution (the government of which was incapable of maintaining itself, as you noted) to the proletarian revolution, which would well and truly carry out to the end such democratic slogans as all land to the peasants and an end to the war.

Die Neue Zeit

13th August 2013, 05:11

There is no similarity to Kropotkin's and Kautsky's position on the war. in 1914 Kautsky wanted the party to abstain in the vote for war credits. That was a total non-runner so he then proposed to them that they introduce an amendment that would have made a vote for them conditional on it being a purely defensive war.

The latter move was an old SPD tactic of introducing an amendment that they knew would be rejected by the government thereby giving them space to vote against a popular measure.

In short Kautsky was against the war and one of the leaders of the anti-war tendency within the SPD. At the start of the war, when the majority pursued a policy of collaboration, he maintained party discipline — as did Liebknecht of course — and didn't articulate publicly his own position as well as calling for party unity and the postponement of public debate on the decision.

Plus, for larger theoretical reasons, he was extremely skeptical of splitting with the majority, even after the anti-war position began to be articulated publicly, i.e. after Liebknecht's vote in late 1914 and the Haase/Bernstein/Kautsky document in 1915.

The problem is that Kautsky considered the possibility of a split in Social Democracy during the time of The Road to Power, and then, how shall I say, reneged on it.

I know that some non-comradely posters here claim that Kautsky was for the war and all that, but really he screwed up tactics and periodical analysis big time! "Peace without annexations or plunder" (his position shared by Hugo Haase (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=grouppictures&groupid=306)) may be appropriate in times such as now, but not during revolutionary periods!

Even Lenin makes the refusal to split the principle charge against him and Haase and the rest, i.e. that they were providing cover for the Majority SPD.

Which they were. They were unable to contain the rise of the right-syndicalists (different from Bernstein and the more historically known pacifist "reform socialists"), and refused to split with them.

If anything he was too indulgent of Britain and its ostensible liberalism.

[...]

I totally deny it. Have you read any of Kautsky's later work? It's actually quite good, the Labour Revolution in particular is well worth a read. If anything, it's more relevant to us in the advanced capitalist countries because he is now writing in states of a similar nature to ours. Prior to 1918 he was writing in a context where ancient absolutist regimes were dominant on the continent.

Interesting that you comment on Britain's liberalism one moment and Labour Revolution the next. That indulgence flows right through that 1924 work. Revivalists and others on the left should certainly read that work, but with a very critical eye towards all that backtracking from bolder positions in The Road to Power.

Fred

13th August 2013, 13:51

Yes. It was Kautsky's conciliation of the right that was the biggest problem. Certainly his credentials as a revolutionary are not so good. Ultimately, Kautsky ceded control of the party to the right-wing, at the most critical junctures making him an abject failure as a revolutionary leader. I would be interested what comrades think of the "Independents" -- they strike me as having been, overall, centrist, but I don't know a great deal about them.

Fred

13th August 2013, 14:23

Lenin pointed out in his Letters on Tactics that "reality shows us both the passing of power into the hands of the bourgeoisie (a 'completed' bourgeois-democratic revolution of the usual type) and, side by side with the real government, the existence of a parallel government which represents the 'revolutionary-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry'. This 'second-government' has itself ceded the power to the bourgeoisie, has chained itself to the bourgeois government. Is this reality covered by Comrade Kamenev's old-Bolshevik formula, which says that 'the bourgeois-democratic revolution is not completed'? It is not. The formula is obsolete." (Collected Works Vol. 24, 1974, p. 50.)

Hence, the Menshevik (i.e. opportunist) leadership of the soviets was preventing the move from the bourgeois-democratic revolution (the government of which was incapable of maintaining itself, as you noted) to the proletarian revolution, which would well and truly carry out to the end such democratic slogans as all land to the peasants and an end to the war.

And hence the Bolsheviks put into effect the Permanent Revolution. And I repeat the the formulation of the DD of the PP was a vague and impracticable slogan and not what the Bolsheviks actually carried out. And no quote from Lenin in May 1917 or 1914 for that matter will change what actually happened.

Your protestations that Stalin and his followers never accused Trotsky of being in the service of US imperialism -- leaving out the small issue that they said he was in the service of Japanese, German and British imperialism begged the point.

Die Neue Zeit

17th August 2013, 14:14

Noa Rodman

17th August 2013, 23:04

About the coming WW2, Kautsky wrote that the Socialist International should be on the side of the USSR, so I guess here we can accuse him of taking sides in an imperialist conflict.

Regarding his support of the Labour party I think it was halfhearted (like Hillquit's). Same for his support of a re-unified SPD. Individually you could argue he successfully applied entryism (managing to co-write again the more traditional marxist Heidelberg program). He left Germany in 1924/25 for Austria. It would be interesting to read his article in Vorwärts (Berlin): Ebert und Branting. Beileidsschreiben an den Vorstand der SPD. Nr. 108 - 5. III.

The point is for Kautsky Germany in this post-war period had rather limited possibilities for socialism.

I just want to mention 2 of his fairly unknown writings on Russia. One is a sort of reply to Trotsky's T&C: https://www.marxists.org/deutsch/archiv/kautsky/1921/sklaverei/index.htm

The other appears in French (but not online) called: L'Internationale et la Russie des Soviets (1925, p.48). Bukharin replied to this with La bourgeoisie internationale et son apôtre Karl Kautsky (p. 128), online at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55214f

Fred

18th August 2013, 00:33

Care to back it up? Since I don't take "they didn't think so themselves but actually it was" as an acceptable form of reasoning, at all.

Sorry about the tardiness of this reply, but I must have missed this when you posted. Very simply, the split in 1903 was not a clear political split. It was not so much about program as appetite. And it really did not become crystal clear until as late as 1914. in 1903 Lenin, I don't believe was trying to formulate an anti-SPD model of the Party. But that was the beginning. That was where the party asa disciplined group comprised of active participants -- as opposed to the "party of the whole class," began to emerge. Ultimately, as I'm sure you already know Lenin's model was vastly different and far superior (at least for making revolution).