What to read first?

Before we start to discuss or read anything, it might be good to narrow our field, given the vast size of Kautsky's writings.

Kautsky lived from October 16, 1854– October 17, 1938 and from 1880 on he became politically active. In 1883 he founded the Die Neue Zeit of which he was the main editor until 1917. This magazine, first a monthly and later on becoming a weekly, influenced vast layers of activists within the social-democratic tradition in and outside Germany. It formed literally generations of Marxists, including Lenin in Russia. You can read more on his life here.

Now, there is a general agreement that his 1909 work The Road to Power was his last Marxist piece, so while he remained active pretty much until he died, it would make sense to draw a line at 1909. This gives us a 26 year window, from 1883 to 1909, to discuss Kautsky's works.

The Kautsky online archive, in English, can be found here. I don't know how complete this is, but I assume it at least has all his main works. Could someone, for example DNZ, give us an outlook of a "must read" list? It would be appreciated. (A general note of caution would be that translations may be influenced, explicitly or not, by how the translator saw Kautsky, translations should therefore not be taken at face value).

Also, I wonder if Die Neuze Zeit is available somewhere online, if possible translated to English (probably not, but I can ask). If not, I can go to the International Institute for Social History in Amsterdam which maintains the Kautsky archive.

My concern with this group is that it will become just as stagnant as the Lenin Literati group.

Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx
Das Erfurter Programm / The Erfurt Programme (commentary)
Parliamentarism

[Whatever work or works where he first introduces the Marxist outline on imperialism]

Bernstein and the Social-Democratic Program
Die Agrefrage / The Agrarian Question
Trade Unions and Socialism
The Slavs and Revolution
The Social Revolution

Republik und Sozialdemokratie in Frankreich (the still-untranslated-but-complete Marxist take on "the state and revolution")

The Intellectuals and the Workers
The Driving Forces and Prospects of the Russian Revolution
The Road to Power

[These post-RtP works are good too]

Sects and Class Parties
Ultra-Imperialism (if only because of the Cold War period and the tensions between European imperialist nation-states and the EU)
Prospects of the Russian Revolution (the CPGB-translated work that inspired the April Theses)

Well, there are some "Kautsky revivalists" on the board and this is meant as a low level entree into Kautsky's ideas for new people (that would include me for a large part).

When I was in Spark, which is the American twig of the French Trotskyist group, Lutte Ouvrier, one of the books that was required reading was The Class Struggle, by Kautsky. Seems like a good place to start.

I'll echo the call to read The Class Struggle.

When I was in Spark, which is the American twig of the French Trotskyist group, Lutte Ouvrier, one of the books that was required reading was The Class Struggle, by Kautsky. Seems like a good place to start.

Really?

I thought even a single sentence by Kautsky was anathema to Trotskyist groups!

I have an old and dead thread somewhere on The Class Struggle, actually.

The History of Christianity, The Road to Power and The Class Struggle.

I just started reading The Class Struggle, but will hold off on reading more if that's what folks want to start with. And it does seem like a pretty good place to start. I'd also agree about reading Sects and Class Parties, since it deals a little bit with the question of a "broad" labour party vs. a socialist party, though personally I think Kautsky comes down a little too favourably on the side of the former.

That short work should be known for being the then-contemporary "Rumour and Gossip Rag/Sheet" about the sad state of the British left.

That short work should be known for being the then-contemporary "Rumour and Gossip Rag/Sheet" about the sad state of the British left.

So Kautsky should be credited for Weekly Worker then?

Whatever floats your boat.

*poke*

Don't let this group die like the Lenin one!

*poke*

Don't let this group die like the Lenin one!

Well, this particular discussion has reached a bit of an ending right now. You're free to carry it further or start a new one.

Any news on republik and social democracy in France?

I read "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" a few weeks ago. It's an impressive analysis of the Bolshevik revolution and an analysis of it's flaws. It was written within a year after the revolution and Kautsky already foresaw man of the serious problems that the Soviet Union would face. It's almost a criticism of the fresh Soviet Union. Definitely worth checking out.

I did. He was already a renegade when he wrote that work, and he focused on the discredited Constituent Assembly when he should have focused on the anti-soviet Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918. That's how tied this renegade was to "bourgeois democracy."

I also read one of his latest works on the USSR (1930?). It was aweful, boring but nonetheless contained some well written pieces.

His best renegade work was also (thankfully) his shortest: Epitaph of Lenin.

"It should also be noted that despite my reservations concerning Lenin’s methods I do not despair of the situation of the Russian revolution. From my standpoint it appears that Lenin may have led the proletarian revolution to victory in Russia, but he was unable to make it bear fruit. In this respect the Russian revolution is not yet finished. It will not be taken to the grave with Lenin. In Russia, too, the aspirations of the working masses for independence will finally gain acceptance. And then all the fruits, which the Russian revolution contained within it in the greatest abundance, will ripen. Then will all the working people of Russia, and all the working people of the world, without divisions in the movement, remember with gratitude all their great pioneers, who over decades full of struggle and tribulations prepared the Russian revolution and then led it to victory. And also for those who today stand in opposition to the Communist Party, the name of Lenin will not be missing from this pantheon. This situation of the unity of the working masses of the world in jointly honouring their fallen hero, in freely working together to build the socialist society, is one I may not yet see, before I follow Lenin into the land from which no traveller ever returns."

Of course, being the senile man he was at that point, he completely forgot this in his later polemics.

So, on towards the consensus here around Das Erfurter Programm, then?

I'm cool with that.

Seems to be what most folks are thinking.

My old thread on Das Erfurter Programm is in the Trashcan.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/class-stru...x.html?t=81525

Oh, and can German comrades help out on the longer, more accurate German rendition - where there is conflict with the English (so I'm not asking for a full-blown translation job here):

http://www.marxistsfr.org/deutsch/ar...rter/index.htm

If anyone needs my help concerning the translation of works of Kautsky, I'll be available from august 15. In August I'll finish my studies. I can read Fraktur (it takes some time to adjust, but after a few pages I can read it almost fluently), I have also learned to decifer handwriting (and other difficult 'fonds') and can translate German texts. On top of that, I'm interested in reading it.

If anyone needs my help concerning the translation of works of Kautsky, I'll be available from august 15. In August I'll finish my studies. I can read Fraktur (it takes some time to adjust, but after a few pages I can read it almost fluently), I have also learned to decifer handwriting (and other difficult 'fonds') and can translate German texts. On top of that, I'm interested in reading it.

Yay

I can read Fraktur too, have more difficulty with it though, so I prefer to stick to the English.

Ye olde English text!

Is the Foundations of Christianity relevant at all? I think it's basically just Kautsky trying to apply historical materialism (HM) to a real-world situation. From what I know -- and I could be quite wrong here, because I'm a bit of a Kautsky noob -- Kautsky takes the position that, to understand HM, you also need to have an understanding of, or base yourself in, the materialist dialectic (DM). Yet people like Rosa Lichtenstein say that we should scrap DM altogether and just focus on HM, but I don't think it's that simple, because both theories are inter-connected, and knowing one will help your understanding of the other, or vice versa. Does this make sense? I suggested this also because I saw a copy of it in the CWI bookshop. And just to clarify, Lenin started hating Kautsky because he became a social-democrat, is that right? But it should also be mentioned that Lenin read a lot of Kautsky, and perhaps could even have considered "Kautskyist" at one stage? Thanks comrades. Being "Kautskyist" doesn't really entail upholding any new theories, added to orthodox Marxism, but it's a programmatic outlook, what with The Erfurt Programme, as far as I know. Although Kautsky did write about imperialism, so I don't know for sure.

Is the Foundations of Christianity relevant at all? I think it's basically just Kautsky trying to apply historical materialism (HM) to a real-world situation. From what I know -- and I could be quite wrong here, because I'm a bit of a Kautsky noob -- Kautsky takes the position that, to understand HM, you also need to have an understanding of, or base yourself in, the materialist dialectic (DM). Yet people like Rosa Lichtenstein say that we should scrap DM altogether and just focus on HM, but I don't think it's that simple, because both theories are inter-connected, and knowing one will help your understanding of the other, or vice versa. Does this make sense? I suggested this also because I saw a copy of it in the CWI bookshop :P

To be clear, I think it is best to ignore Rosa's ramblings on anti-dialectics altogether.

And just to clarify, Lenin started hating Kautsky because he became a social-democrat, is that right? But it should also be mentioned that Lenin read a lot of Kautsky, and perhaps could even have considered "Kautskyist" at one stage? Thanks comrades.

Lenin was arguably an "Erfurtian" until the day he died. The reason he hated the person of Kautsky after 1914, was because Kautsky moved away from his own positions and ended up way to the right by the end of his life.

Read this three-part of Lars Lih for background:
VI Lenin and the influence of Kautsky
Lenin, Kautsky, and 1914
The four wagers of Lenin in 1917

Being "Kautskyist" doesn't really entail upholding any new theories, added to orthodox Marxism, but it's a programmatic outlook, what with The Erfurt Programme, as far as I know. Although Kautsky did write about imperialism, so I don't know for sure.

It involves more then just the Erfurt Programme, although that was an important foundation for many programmatic developments for the Marxist parties in the second international. Kautsky maintained Die Neue Zeit as an important focus point of theoretical development of Marxists. Kautsky was the first to categorically classify Marxism as a coherent set of ideas. Marx, for all the work he did, never did this. He only wrote (many) letters, but didn't publish any of the debates as such in a regular publication.

From what I know -- and I could be quite wrong here, because I'm a bit of a Kautsky noob -- Kautsky takes the position that, to understand HM, you also need to have an understanding of, or base yourself in, the materialist dialectic (DM). Yet people like Rosa Lichtenstein say that we should scrap DM altogether and just focus on HM, but I don't think it's that simple, because both theories are inter-connected, and knowing one will help your understanding of the other, or vice versa.

"Historical materialism" is the materialist dialectic though. The "outstanding achievment of Hegel's Phenomenology" is the dialectic of negativity - the conception of self-creation (The "active side developed by idealism" whose absence was the "chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism") or the fact that men create and recreate themselves through the production process and the fact that the "real active orientation of man to himself" can only occur on the basis of the development of the productive forces which itself can only occur on the basis of self-estrangement. Everywhere Marx himself uses Hegelian terminology he uses it when discussing an aspect of the material productive process and more specifically the process of production of capital.

I think Engels dialectic of nature and Dialectical Materialism in general is at best some vague heuristic generalisations and at worst a total distraction from the real content of Marx's work.

Would it not be possible to save the relevant MIA pages (they're all on MIA) from HTML to PDF and then read it from there?