Bolsheviki rising (Kautsky's response to October)

  1. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    There is some anecdote where I believe Lenin asks Trotsky about Kautsky's response and marvels at the lack of a word from him on the subject. I think I found so far that there are 3 articles of Kautsky in the aftermath (before his 1918 The Dictatorship of the proletariat), but strange that I didn't notice this text was online before;
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/kau...bolsheviki.htm

    Interesting?

    (I try to find where Kautsky takes his evidence that the bolsheviks believed socialism was on the immediate agenda in Russia - Lih has shown that this wasn't the case I think, even in the April Theses Lenin makes the caveat).
  2. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    Kautsky had quite the wrong reaction here.

    "The one wing, the Menshiviki, sought to circumscribe the all-powerfulness of the bourgeoisie through a coalition cabinet."

    Excuse me?

    "The other the Bolsheviki, which aimed at the same goal through a dictatorship of the proletariat, which, true enough, had to derive support also from the revolutionary element of the peasantry. The Bolsheviki held forth the prospect of immediate peace if the proletariat alone were to take the government into its hands and with force keep the bourgeois elements down, incurring the risk, of course, of letting loose a civil war thereby."

    Did he forget Old Bolshevism all of a sudden?

    "The Russian revolutionary cabinets were also only meant as provisional governments to bring about peace and call together the Constitutional Assembly. They could only perform their function on the condition that peace and the Constitutional Assembly were brought about quickly."

    Neither of which the liberal Provisional Government, which even Stalin disowned as not being the Revolutionary Provisional Government called for by Old Bolshevism, brought about.

    On a side note:

    "Marx acknowledged the necessity for the parliament in modern politics, but just as much the necessity of pressure on the parliament from without. He who demands the supreme power be lodged in the parliament, but at the same time holds back the proletariat from all efforts to influence the parliament through methods corresponding to the nature of the proletariat as a class, he does not seriously desire the democratization" reminds me of "parliamentary and extra-parliamentary action" and "electoral and 'social movement' activity."
  3. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    It seems as if Kautsky thought the Bolsheviks were representatives of raw class consciousness and not a highly develop socialist (social democratic) consciousness.

    "The Bolsheviki way of reasoning was the one most simple, the one that closely corresponded to the proletariat’s position as a class. But also the one that threatened to aggravate to the extreme the antagonisms between the high aims of the proletariat and the low stage of development of the country."

    "The dictatorship of the proletariat means the inhibition of capitalist production. The capitalist mode of production becomes an impossibility under a proletarian regime. Is Russia already equipped to put in its place a Socialist mode of production? Besides, the Russian working class is neither sufficiently strong nor sufficiently developed to be able to take over the entire apparatus of government and supervise its needs. Therefore the danger lay close at hand that the proletarian regime would strive to dissolve the power of the state instead of conquering and reshaping it. And in that country, where a few advanced centers are in danger of being pulled down by a backward majority out in the provinces it is quite possible that the threatening elements seek to retain their position by working for complete independence for the provinces, aye, for the communes, as for example the Bakunin adherents in Spain in the early seventies. Thus, under the conditions of Russia’s life, the dictatorship of the proletariat threatened to lead to the political and social dissolution of the country, to chaos, but thereby also to the moral bankruptcy of the revolution and a preparing of the way for a counterrevolution."


    The spontanious movement and thoughts of the class were to be restrained, yet instead - this Kautsky implies - the Bolsheviks jumped on the band wagon. I wonder what he thought of the reaction of many Bolsheviks to the July action.
  4. Die Neue Zeit
    Die Neue Zeit
    It seems as if Kautsky thought the Bolsheviks were representatives of raw class consciousness and not a highly develop socialist (social democratic) consciousness.

    The spontanious movement and thoughts of the class were to be restrained, yet instead - this Kautsky implies - the Bolsheviks jumped on the band wagon. I wonder what he thought of the reaction of many Bolsheviks to the July action.
    That, comrade, is assuming he knew anything about the July Days (which I've used before as a polemical stick about the real lessons of the PCF's role in May 1968). Then again, later on he didn't say anything about the Bolshevik coups d'etat of 1918, so I'm sure his knowledge of the Russian situation was rusty at that point.
  5. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    I don't know the date of this text, but it is from before Brest-Litovsk (in English first published in Weekly People).

    Kautsky actually understood that a third stage of the revolution would happen; he predicts basically that the October revolution would happen in this text (which is from August 1917, but which the English publisher found it good to print even after October happened!):
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/kau...11/russian.htm

    DNZ, I don't see how you can think that Kautsky didn't mention the bolshevik anti-soviet coups (with all his defense of freedom of press etc.); he even argued that they were an outcome of the soviet form itself:

    https://www.marxists.org/archive/kau...prole/ch07.htm

    "On the other hand, when the workers vote together, they need not fear the united votes of their opponents. By obliging them to fight their common foes, universal suffrage causes them to close up their ranks sooner than if the political struggle were confined to the Soviets, from which the opponents are excluded, and in which the political struggle of a Socialist party takes the form of attacking another Socialist Party. Instead of class-consciousness, sectarian fanaticism is thereby induced."

    ..
    "It seems, then, that any body of electors may order the electoral procedure according to their whims. This would give the greatest scope for arbitrary action, and make it possible to get rid of any inconvenient element of opposition within the proletariat itself."

    ..
    "There is no word in the constitution of the Soviet Republic respecting the immunity of deputies. Not particular persons (but particular parties) were thereby excluded from the Soviets. This means in practice nothing less than that all proletarians, who take their stand on the ground of party, lose their votes. Their votes are no longer counted. For this no specific clause exists."

    I think that Kautsky had a relatively good knowledge of the Russian situation for example in these private notes (which were never before published):

    http://libcom.org/library/bolshevik-...s-karl-kautsky
  6. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    Here's a translation of the latter section, dealing with the peace question and the reviv, of that article by Kautsky from 31 August 1917 (Die Neue Zeit, p.505 vol. 35; 1916-1917 Band 2)

    (the first section: http://www.marxists.org/archive/kautsky/1917/11/russian.htm

    2. The International.

    The struggle for peace, which in Stockholm will be introduced, conditions first and foremost the revival of the International as peace-instrument.

    Until now its functioning during the war faced great obstacles. A series of energetic fighters of the international position, who didn't mind these obstacles, found themselves already 2 years ago, in September 1915, for an international meeting together in Zimmerwald.

    Two directions appeared there. The one declared the old International death and rejected any attempt to revive it again. A new International will be built exclusively from parts of the previously socialist parties, who for this goal are to be split, insofar as this hasn't already happened.

    A second direction put itself on the other hand the task, to bring the existing International back to functioning. The Zimmerwald conference would give the strongest impulse for this. This second direction got the majority. The general international conference, which it for 2 years strove, for which it worked, is now called to Stockholm.

    However, two concerns are leveled against it. First: May the representatives of a direction sit together abroad at one table with another direction , which as ruinous it most energetically fights at home?

    This concern becomes from the outset groundless for these comrades, who also at home don't reject, to sit with the opposite side at one table, as for example in France, England, Switzerland, Austria is the case. The party-split as consequence of the war isn't an international, but a specific German phenomenon. It's due to the special intolerance of the leading party authorities of the old German Social-Democracy, when contrary to the other warring counties with us the certainly here deep opposition of the directions inside the same organisation becomes an opposition of two party-organisations. However in international politics we must not carry the particularities of our national party-life. Therewith, that we find ourselves together with our opponents in one hall, is not at all said, that we want to walk on the same road with them. We meet after all not at the pub table and go to Stockholm not because of them and not invited by them. But it would be totally false, when we by the presence of our opponents stop ourselves, to speak to the International and there develop our position in opposition to them.

    That's why I also didn't understand the previous refusal of the majority of the French and Belgian comrades, to take part at an international conference, at which the German Social-democrats are admitted. When they reproach German socialism with treason in the matter of the International, they can in the presence of its representatives charge it before the International. They prefer to replace its purge by sabotage.

    As little understandable is another concern, that now and again is expressed: When the minorities sit themselves with the majorities in Stockholm at the table, the latter will unite among themselves and outvote the minorities.

    Let's assume, that would really happen, and resolutions are made, which the minorities decidedly must reject: then they would still have the possibility, which one recommends from the start: to absent. But the effect on the masses, and they are what matters foremost, will be different, far more beneficial to us, when it is a result of these resolutions after the proceded discussion, then if we avoid this discussion.

    Do we break away of the previous International, after it has made resolutions, that fly in the face of socialism and internationalism, then the whole world knows, why we cannot participate, why we must break with this organisation. Do we stay from the start away, before the organisation has spoken, merely, because it could make resolutions, that we can't approve, then the masses, who judge only on manifest facts, will accuse us, that we disturbed the peace-action, on which the whole world counts, out of personal grudge. If in these circumstances Stockholm becomes a failure, it would fall on our head. If it becomes a success, without us, against us, we would be the disgraced.

    But is it then at all likely, that resolutions are made, that are unacceptable for us? Ever again the fear sounds, that the majorities could agree on an imperialist or nationalist basis against the minorities. But those who speak like that, always carefully omit, to elaborate this danger more closely. With good reason. In doing so it would turn out to be an absurdity.

    Against the agreement of governments of the imperialist leading great powers alone one may carry distrust. Would it take place not on the basis of the self-determination of nations, would it not be guarded by a respect incorporating stance by the international proletariat, then it could well become an agreement at the expense of the weaker nations.

    But in the International things are different after all. There stands in every great warring nations opposite the official party a strong minority, there the great nations are also not at all decisive. How it would be possible, that the majorities agree among themselves on an imperialist or nationalist peace, that is on peace conditions, which would bring advantage to individual nations at the expense of others, is incomprehensible. Whichever nations thereby is advantaged, it'd find always all the minorities and a plurality of the majorities of other nations against itself. So long as the imperialist peace isn't defined more closely, on which the majorities in contrast to the minorities could agree, it remains as perfect nonsense as the squaring of the circle.

    One imagine only the fear, that Renaudel and Compère-Morel would agree with David on Alsace-Lorraine in a way that would signify a violation of the minorities in Germany and France! That Vandervelde and Legien would combine in the Belgian question, to fight united against Haase and Bernstein! To denote this conception, is already, to make it ludicrous.

    Exactly on this all previous attempts failed, to bring the International back to functioning, that the majority-socialists of the with each other warring countries stand to one and other in irreconcilable opposition. Also still today an agreement on the peace conditions between them alone would be barred. Only the minorities can lay the basis for such an agreement, and only then, when the majorities put themselves on this basis, a peace-action of the International would become possible at all. In the face of the hostile towards each other majorities the minorities, who in every question are able to agree, can really obtain in Stockholm the moral leadership. If the minorities act as skilled as unfaltering, then they will isolate every single socialist party, who goes against them.

    But admittedly, as with the Zimmerwalder we must among the oppositional currents against the official party leaderships generally distinguish two directions.

    The one stands on the ground, on which Social-Democracy almost half a century until the war stood; it turns itself against the majorities, insofar as these replaced internationalism by nationalism or even, as this occurs here and there, by imperialism, replaced democracy and class struggle by power politics in unity with the bourgeois parties and following the governments.

    The other direction in contrast isn't sufficed with this. It belongs to the relearners, when though not in the sense of Lensch and Cunow. It seeks to introduce in the old Social-democratic line of thought new ideas, which however on inspection reveal themselves as very old shelf warmers from the Blanquist or Bakuninist factory, which Marxism in decades long arduous struggles gradually set aside, which however under the influence of the reaction against the war again become in fashion. This direction preaches full contempt for the parliamentary struggle and the participation of the proletariat in it. It wants to know nothing of the elastic Social-democratic tactic, which counts with the revolution, but there, where the circumstances for this aren't ripe, is uniteable with reform just as well. It wants to focus our tactic in all conditions only on the immediate revolution. It wants finally not to thwart the war and the war danger of the future by demanding general demilitarisation, the disarmament of all great conqueror states - an idea, which it rather mocks. It demands unilateral demilitarisation, the defenselessness of the own people under all conditions, without any regard to its neighbours, even when the own state is a democractic, its neighbouring state a weapons-fixated conqueror state. It fights not only the standing army, corresponding to our program, but also the "people's militia".

    This direction has indeed every ground to fear, that it at a general international conference remains a hopeless minority and in its negotiations completely falls behind. That it wants to stay away from the conference, is very easy to understand.

    That is in no way the case for the true Social-Democratic opposition-currents. These will either rule the congress, or it will fail at the impossibility of an agreement of the majorities and separate in strife - in the one and the other event the opposition-currents will show themselves as the most energetic and staunch defenders of democratic peace. Whatever outcome the congress may take, its esteem and influence among the proletarian masses must by its negotiations gain and the peace-movement in the sense, as it regards it as necessary, strengthen.

    The effect for peace is naturally the decisive. We have after all not chosen our form of the peace-movement because the point for us is to carry opposition at any price and to become unpleasant for the majority, but because we saw ourselves forced to go over to opposition, since we only on this road could work for peace, since that, what the majority called politics of peace, so far blocked the road to it.

    As little as we can foresee, which course the negotiations in Stockholm will take, what it's final result will be, one thing today seems to us certain: Does the conference despite all obstacles take place, then it will not end without the International in some form revives again, not as dead form, but as living organism, in which the powerful peace-movement pulsates. It will revive either by renewed, powerful functioning of the old International or by the creation of a third International.

    The negotiations of Stockholm will be avidly registered by the proletariat of the whole world, and if it doesn't bring peace immediately, they will still unleash the most energetic struggle for peace, which will be all the more powerful, since it gains international unity.

    The attitude of individual parties may therewith be whatever it is; they may participate at the negotiations and resolutions with so many ulterior motives and reservations, decisive is the effect on the masses, and first once they are internationally in motion, then they will get rid of the conscientious objectors of the peace-movement as well as the open opponents of a democratic peace - naturally still under the assumption, that the conference happens at all.

    In the center of the Stockholm negotiations will stand German Social-Democracy, just as the German Reich stands in the center of the world war. As widespread the antipathy in the world against the German government, as wide the one in the International against those German Social-democrats who support their government. On not a single point inside the International there is so great accord as on this. If momentarily some judge less abrasive about the German majority , it is due to the circumstance that a series of Entente governments in the latest time made serious errors, under the growing influence of conservatives and the militarists which the war entails.

    How far this will influence the negotiations in Stockholm can't yet be foreseen. One can however expect, that the beginning peace-movement willl put specially high claim on the German Social-Democracy. The question of world peace becomes ever more undividable with the democratisation of Germany. And the world is wary enough, not to be fobbed off with discounts on the future. It demands this democratisation far more urgently then the old German Social-Democracy itself. The whole world after all knows, that democracy is obtained not by a government-party, but always only is conquered by a party of the most energetic struggle against the government.
  7. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    Also, an article (Verschiedene Kritiker der Bolschewiki, 24 March 1918) in which Kautsky clearly differentiate himself from bourgeois critics (and their counterparts in the SPD) of bolshevism. Online at http://search.socialhistory.org/Reco...iveContentList
  8. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    There is some anecdote where I believe Lenin asks Trotsky about Kautsky's response and marvels at the lack of a word from him on the subject.
    Sorry this anecdote was about Hilferding (told in My life).

    Lenin was very eager to get Kautsky's response:

    I would very much ask you to send (especially addressed to me) Kautsky’s pamphlet (about the Bolsheviks, dictatorship, etc.) as soon as it appears—[2]
    —and then to collect for me all Kautsky’s articles about the Bolsheviks (“Democracy and Dictatorship”, the end of 1917 or the beginning of 1918; then the article from Sozialistische Auslandspolitik, August 1918) and other articles, if there were any.
    The German Communist leaders could not defeat Kautsky:

    Kautsky’s disgraceful rubbish, childish babble and shallowest opportunism impel me to ask: why do we do nothing to fight the theoretical vulgarisation of Marxism by Kautsky?

    Can we tolerate that even such people as Mehring and Zetkin keep away from Kautsky more “morally” (if one may put it so) than theoretically.... Kautsky has found nothing better to do now than to write against the Bolsheviks, they say.

    Is that an argument? Can one really so weaken one’s own position? Why, that is only putting a weapon into Kautsky’s hands!!

    And this instead of writing:

    Kautsky has absolutely failed to understand and has distorted in a purely opportunist way the teaching of Marx on the state , on the dictatorship of the proletariat , on bourgeois democray , on parliamentarism , on the role and significance of the Commune, etc.
    https://www.marxists.org/archive/len...18/sep/20x.htm
  9. Tower of Bebel
    Tower of Bebel
    Thanks for the information, Noa.
  10. Noa Rodman
    Noa Rodman
    translation (partially) of that Kautsky article of 24 March 1918 (fresh in the wake of Brest-Litovsk peace treaty, Germany still at war, Kautsky in the USPD): https://libcom.org/library/different...s-karl-kautsky