Kautsky, Karl
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Kautsky broke with the majority of the Social Democrats during [[World War I]]. Bebel's death in 1913 severely undermined Kautsky's influence in the party, while his opposition to the war eventually brought an end to his affiliation with the SPD. In 1914, when the German Social-Democrat deputies in the Reichstag voted for the war credits, Kautsky, who was not a deputy but attended their meetings, had suggested abstaining. In June 1915, about ten months after the war had begun, Kautsky issued an appeal with [[Eduard Bernstein]] and [[Hugo Haase]] against the pro-war leaders of the SPD and denounced the government's annexationist aims. In 1917, convinced of the war guilt of Germany and Austria, he left the SPD for the [[Pacifism|pacifist]] [[Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (USPD), which united Socialists who opposed the war. This move cost Kautsky the editorship of ''Die neue Zeit''. <ref>[[http://www.answers.com/topic/karl-kautsky]]<!-- Bot generated title —>]</ref> | Kautsky broke with the majority of the Social Democrats during [[World War I]]. Bebel's death in 1913 severely undermined Kautsky's influence in the party, while his opposition to the war eventually brought an end to his affiliation with the SPD. In 1914, when the German Social-Democrat deputies in the Reichstag voted for the war credits, Kautsky, who was not a deputy but attended their meetings, had suggested abstaining. In June 1915, about ten months after the war had begun, Kautsky issued an appeal with [[Eduard Bernstein]] and [[Hugo Haase]] against the pro-war leaders of the SPD and denounced the government's annexationist aims. In 1917, convinced of the war guilt of Germany and Austria, he left the SPD for the [[Pacifism|pacifist]] [[Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (USPD), which united Socialists who opposed the war. This move cost Kautsky the editorship of ''Die neue Zeit''. <ref>[[http://www.answers.com/topic/karl-kautsky]]<!-- Bot generated title —>]</ref> | ||
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| + | When the Russian Bolsheviks first came into power, Kautsky hailed the revolution as the rise of the proletariat to power. He soon became skeptical of the circumstances in Russia as being amenable to establishing a true Marxist state, particularly that three-fourths of the nation lived in the industrial-backward countryside. When the Bolsheviks dissolved the Constituent Assembly and abolished universal sufferage, Kautsky called the Russian govenment a dictatorship. | ||
| + | Kautsky also believed that nationalization of the means of production was not equal to socialism and saw the Russian revolution as creating a third form of society, distinct from capitalism or socialism, in which a "new class" minority would impose a rule over the majority even more oppressive than the bourgeois. Kautsky argued to replace the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the "domination" of the working class in a regime founded on three elements: a consensus in favor of socialism; maintenance of political democracy; and the use of parliament for socialist purposes and the construction of a system of organs of rank-and-file democracy capable of lending the state and the central power a popular foundation. Lenin regarded Kautksy as a 'renegade' that had made a complete break with Marxism. | ||
After 1919, Kautsky's prominence steadily diminished. He visited [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] in 1920 and wrote a book in 1921 on this Social Democratic country still independent of [[Soviet Union|Bolshevist Russia]]. In 1920, when the USPD split, he went with a minority of that party back into the SPD. At the age of 70 he moved back to Vienna with his family in 1924 where he remained until 1938. At the time of Hitler's [[Anschluss]], he fled to [[Czechoslovakia]] and then by plane to [[Amsterdam]] where he died in the same year. | After 1919, Kautsky's prominence steadily diminished. He visited [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] in 1920 and wrote a book in 1921 on this Social Democratic country still independent of [[Soviet Union|Bolshevist Russia]]. In 1920, when the USPD split, he went with a minority of that party back into the SPD. At the age of 70 he moved back to Vienna with his family in 1924 where he remained until 1938. At the time of Hitler's [[Anschluss]], he fled to [[Czechoslovakia]] and then by plane to [[Amsterdam]] where he died in the same year. | ||
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==Legacy== | ==Legacy== | ||
| − | Kautsky played a major role in German Social Democracy and the Second International, and was one of the leading exponents of Marxism from its state of germination with Marx and Engels until its fulfillment in the Russian revolution (a revolution of which Kautsky did not approve.) Despite his prominence and influence, he has been considered a lesser figure to his contemporaries in the Marxist pantheon. This is due in no small part to Kautsky's long-held view that the dictatorship of the proletariat would be accomplished via free elections, respect civil and political liberty, and achieve socialist objectives through a parliamentary system of a centrally administered bureaucratic government. Kautsky saw the Soviet state as a tyrannical political system of an unrestrained centralized bureaucracy. | + | Kautsky played a major role in German Social Democracy and the Second International, and was one of the leading exponents of Marxism from its state of germination with Marx and Engels until its fulfillment in the Russian revolution (a revolution of which Kautsky did not approve.) Despite his prominence and influence, he has been considered a lesser figure to his contemporaries in the Marxist pantheon. This is due in no small part to Kautsky's long-held view that the dictatorship of the proletariat would be accomplished via free elections, respect civil and political liberty, and achieve socialist objectives through a parliamentary system of a centrally administered bureaucratic government. Kautsky saw the Soviet state as a tyrannical political system of an unrestrained centralized bureaucracy. Subsequent revisionists viewed Kautsky as an 'evolutionist' rather than a true Marxist.("Karl Kautsky and the Socailist Revolution" by Massimo Salvadore) |
Kautsky was described as a "renegade" by [[Vladimir Lenin]], and he in turn castigated Lenin in his 1934 work ''Marxism and Bolshevism: Democracy and Dictatorship'':<BR> | Kautsky was described as a "renegade" by [[Vladimir Lenin]], and he in turn castigated Lenin in his 1934 work ''Marxism and Bolshevism: Democracy and Dictatorship'':<BR> | ||
Revision as of 18:50, 10 December 2008
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Karl Kautsky (October 16 1854 – October 17 1938) was a leading theoretician of German Social Democracy before World War I and a principal figure in the history of the Internationalist Socialist movement[2]. He became a significant figure in Marxist history as the editor of the fourth volume of Karl Marx's economic critique, Das Kapital, and was the leading promulgator of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels.
Life
Karl Kautsky was born in Prague of artistic middle class parents. The family moved to Vienna when he was seven years old. While studying history and philosophy at the University of Vienna in 1874, Kautsky became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) in 1875. Karl Kautsky lived in Berlin-Friedenau for many years; his wife, Luise Kautsky, was a close friend of Rosa Luxemburg, who also lived in Friedenau, and today there is a commemorative plaque where Kautsky lived at Saarstraße 14.
Career
In 1880 Kautsky moved to Zurich, where he joined a group of German socialists who smuggled socialist material into the Reich at the time of the Anti-Socialist Laws. This group was supported financially by millionaire Karl Höchberg [3]. Influenced by Höchberg's secretary, Eduard Bernstein, Kautsky became a Marxist and Hochberg subsidized Kautsky's study of socialist scholarship. In 1881 Kautsky visited Marx and Engels in England.
In 1883, Kautsky founded the monthly Die Neue Zeit ("The New Time") in Stuttgart, which became a weekly in 1890; he was its editor until September 1917 – which gave him a steady income and allowed him to propogate Marxism.[1] From 1885-1888 Kautsky lived in London, where he established a close personal relationship with Engels and furthered his theoretical studies by visiting the British Museum library.
The German Social Democratic Party[4] was an illegal party for many years until 1890, when Kaiser William II [5], dropped the anti¬socialist laws. In 1891 the Social Democrats set forth their program at a congress at Erfurt, Germany [6]. Kautsky co-authored the Erfurt Program of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) together with August Bebel and Eduard Bernstein. The Erfurt program was strongly Marxist and revolutionary in tone, but encouraged its members to work through existing political institutions. The Erfurt program remained the official program of the party throughout the imperial period
Following the death of Engels in 1895, Kautsky became one of the most important and influential theoreticians of Marxism, representing the center of the party together with August Bebel. In the later 1890s when Bernstein attacked the traditional Marxist position on the necessity for revolution, Kautsky denounced him, arguing that Bernstein's emphasis on the ethical foundations of Socialism opened the road to a call for an alliance with the "progressive" bourgeoisie and a non-class approach.
Kautsky broke with the majority of the Social Democrats during World War I. Bebel's death in 1913 severely undermined Kautsky's influence in the party, while his opposition to the war eventually brought an end to his affiliation with the SPD. In 1914, when the German Social-Democrat deputies in the Reichstag voted for the war credits, Kautsky, who was not a deputy but attended their meetings, had suggested abstaining. In June 1915, about ten months after the war had begun, Kautsky issued an appeal with Eduard Bernstein and Hugo Haase against the pro-war leaders of the SPD and denounced the government's annexationist aims. In 1917, convinced of the war guilt of Germany and Austria, he left the SPD for the pacifist Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany (USPD), which united Socialists who opposed the war. This move cost Kautsky the editorship of Die neue Zeit. [2]
When the Russian Bolsheviks first came into power, Kautsky hailed the revolution as the rise of the proletariat to power. He soon became skeptical of the circumstances in Russia as being amenable to establishing a true Marxist state, particularly that three-fourths of the nation lived in the industrial-backward countryside. When the Bolsheviks dissolved the Constituent Assembly and abolished universal sufferage, Kautsky called the Russian govenment a dictatorship. Kautsky also believed that nationalization of the means of production was not equal to socialism and saw the Russian revolution as creating a third form of society, distinct from capitalism or socialism, in which a "new class" minority would impose a rule over the majority even more oppressive than the bourgeois. Kautsky argued to replace the "dictatorship of the proletariat" with the "domination" of the working class in a regime founded on three elements: a consensus in favor of socialism; maintenance of political democracy; and the use of parliament for socialist purposes and the construction of a system of organs of rank-and-file democracy capable of lending the state and the central power a popular foundation. Lenin regarded Kautksy as a 'renegade' that had made a complete break with Marxism.
After 1919, Kautsky's prominence steadily diminished. He visited Georgia in 1920 and wrote a book in 1921 on this Social Democratic country still independent of Bolshevist Russia. In 1920, when the USPD split, he went with a minority of that party back into the SPD. At the age of 70 he moved back to Vienna with his family in 1924 where he remained until 1938. At the time of Hitler's Anschluss, he fled to Czechoslovakia and then by plane to Amsterdam where he died in the same year.
Legacy
Kautsky played a major role in German Social Democracy and the Second International, and was one of the leading exponents of Marxism from its state of germination with Marx and Engels until its fulfillment in the Russian revolution (a revolution of which Kautsky did not approve.) Despite his prominence and influence, he has been considered a lesser figure to his contemporaries in the Marxist pantheon. This is due in no small part to Kautsky's long-held view that the dictatorship of the proletariat would be accomplished via free elections, respect civil and political liberty, and achieve socialist objectives through a parliamentary system of a centrally administered bureaucratic government. Kautsky saw the Soviet state as a tyrannical political system of an unrestrained centralized bureaucracy. Subsequent revisionists viewed Kautsky as an 'evolutionist' rather than a true Marxist.("Karl Kautsky and the Socailist Revolution" by Massimo Salvadore)
Kautsky was described as a "renegade" by Vladimir Lenin, and he in turn castigated Lenin in his 1934 work Marxism and Bolshevism: Democracy and Dictatorship:
- "The Bolsheviks under Lenin’s leadership, however, succeeded in capturing control of the armed forces in Petrograd and later in Moscow and thus laid the foundation for a new dictatorship in place of the old Tsarist dictatorship."[7]
Subsequent
His work Social Democracy vs. Communism[3] treated the Bolshevist rule in Russia. In Kautsky's view, Bolsheviks (or, Communists) had been a conspirational organization, which gained power by a coup d'etat and initiated revolutionary changes for which there were no economic presumptions in Russia. Instead, a bureaucratic society developed, misery of which eclipsed the problems of the Western capitalism. The attempts (undertaken first by Lenin and then by Stalin) to build a working and affluent socialist society failed.
- “Foreign tourists in Russia stand in silent amazement before the gigantic enterprises created there, as they stand before the pyramids, for example. Only seldom does the thought occur to them what enslavement, what lowering of human self-esteem was connected with the construction of those gigantic establishments.”
- “They extracted the means for the creation of material productive forces by destroying the most essential productive force of all-the laboring man. In the terrible conditions created by the Piatiletka, people rapidly perished. Soviet films, of course, did not show this.” (ch. 6 Is Soviet Russia A Socialist State?)
Major works
- Frederick Engels: His Life, His Work and His Writings (1887) [8]
- The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx (1887/1903) [9]
- Thomas More and his Utopia (1888) [10]
- The Class Struggle (1892) [11]
- On The Agrarian Question (1899)
- The Social Revolution and on the day After the Social Revolution (1902) [12]
- Foundations of Christianity (1908) [13]
- The Road to Power (1909) [14]
- Are the Jews a Race? (1914) [15]
- The Dictatorship of the Proletariat (1918) [16]
- Terrorism and Communism (1919) [17]
- The Labour Revolution (1924) [18]
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
External links
Credits
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