The only reason why I'm posting this is because, in RP's Dialectics user group, there are misplaced "criticisms" of the true founder of "Marxism" and his particular dialectic, so well appreciated in fact by his most well-known disciple. Notwithstanding my position on dialectics, the materialist conception of history, and the materialist conception of dynamics, I'd like to quote Lars Lih extensively to clarify the record (from the disciple's POV). Dialectics Introduction The label “dialectics” is derived from the citation given below from Left-Wing Communism. The other citations do not use this word, but they illustrate the same argument: When he was a Marxist, Kautsky understand the need for flexible tactics, for adjusting to new and unexpected situations while remaining true to basic positions. But when he was confronted with the new realities created by war and revolution, he was completely unable to adjust. Lenin makes this argument sometimes in an angry tone of voice, sometimes in a more regretful tone of voice. Citations 1) 1914. Philosophical Notebooks. Lenin does not take notes on any Kautsky work in these notebooks. Kautsky is mentioned twice by other writers. In case, V. Shuliatikov mentions that both Marx and Kautsky show a connection between a commodity economy and abstract religious views. Lenin comments: “Not in the same spirit as you do” (29:462). In the other case, Iu. Steklov cites Kautsky’s Social Revolution in connection with his, Steklov’s analysis of Chernyshevsky. Lenin comments: “Oho! Com. Steklov is tangled up in his lies!” At present, Lenin’s point here is opaque to me. 2) May 1919. “Heroes of the Bern International.” “The record in substituting reactionary whining for Marxism is taken by Mr. Kautsky. He holds one note: cries about what is happening, is upset, weeps, is horrified, preaches conciliation! All his life this knight of the doleful countenance wrote about class struggle and about socialism, and when matters came to the maximum sharpening of the class struggle and the eve of socialism, our wise man lost his bearings, wailed away and became an out-and-out philistine. [He forgets what he wrote when he was a Marxist about the link between revolution and war (see above under Road to Power).] Now, instead of a sober, fearless analysis of what changes in the form of revolution are inevitable as a consequence of the war, our ‘theoretician’ weeps and wails over his smashed ‘expectations’.” (This is in response to a Kautsky comment in 1919 that the revolution came about, not as a result of a class struggle, but rather as a result of a war-induced collapse of the dominant system, contrary to expectations.) 38:394 (See also 38:365-6 for a similar point about Kautsky’s “frightened” attitude toward civil war.) 3) September 1919. “How the bourgeoisie utilizes renegades.” Lenin reacts to Kautsky’s latest anti-Soviet book, although all he has to go on is a newspaper account. Kautsky evidently called the Bolsheviks hypocrites for installing the death penalty after being opposed to it, and Lenin brings up material about the 1903 debate on this topic at the Second Congress. “Kautsky has to such an extent unlearned [razuchilsia] to think in revolutionary fashion, so such an extent mired himself in philistine opportunism, that he can’t even image how a revolutionary proletarian party, long before its victory, could openly acknowledge the necessity of the death penalty for counter-revolutionaries!” (I include this comment because (a) it implies that Kautsky did once think in revolutionary fashion, and (b) it documents the argument that Kautsky’s principal fault is his inability to apply his Marxist principles to the new era of revolutions.) 39:184 4) Summer 1920. Left-Wing Communism: A Symptom of Growing Pains. “What happened to such highly learned Marxists as Kautsky, Otto Bauer, and others—vozhdi of the Second International who are devoted to socialism—can (and should) serve as a useful lesson. They were completely aware of the necessity for flexible tactics, they studied and they taught Marxist dialectics to others (and much of what they did in this connection will forever remain a valuable acquisition of socialist literature), but in the application of this dialectic, they made such mistakes or showed themselves in practice not to be dialecticians, they turned out to be people who could not take into account the swift change of forms and the swift filling of old forms with new content, that their fate is little more envious than the fate of Hyndman, Guesde, and Plekhanov.” 41:87-8 5) Spring 1921. “On the Food-Supply Tax.” Lenin introduces the term ‘war communism’ to describe the policy of taking from the peasants with very little compensation besides worthless paper money—a policy that Lenin says was forced on the Bolsheviks by circumstances. “We could not conquer the landlords and the capitalists in a devastated small-peasant country in any other way. … This fact also shows the role played in practice by the lackeys of the bourgeoisie—Mensheviks, SRs, Kautsky and Co.—when they said that this ‘war communism’ was our fault. It must in fact be put down as our merit.” 43:219-20 6) January 1923. “On Our Revolution” “There is no doubt that a textbook written Ã* la Kautsky (po Kautskomu) was a very useful thing for its time. But the time has come nevertheless to renounce the thought that this textbook foresaw all forms of development of the rest of world history. It is high time that people who think like this are shown to be fools.” (The usual translation is: “a textbook written on Kautskyite lines.” But this is just a mistranslation, since anyone familiar with what Lenin meant by “Kautskyite” will realize that he could not have said that “a textbook written on Kautskyite lines” was ever useful.) (In the context of earlier statements on this theme, we see that Lenin is not being at all ironical when he says that a textbook Ã* la Kautsky was once a very useful thing. Lenin is not making the claim that he or anybody else foresaw all the tactical changes made necessary by the actual “new era of revolutions.” His own merit is that he was able to dialectically adjust and draw the necessary tactical consequences, Kautsky’s demerit is his inability to do this.) 45:382
