renegadekautsky

Return to Main Page
Return to List of Readings

"The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky" (1918)

by V. I. Lenin

INTRODUCTION. V. I. Lenin was the leader of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in October/November 1917 and thus founding father of the Soviet Union. In this piece, written about a year after taking power in the midst of the Russian Civil War, he is responding to Karl Kautsky, a leader in the German Socialist Democratic Party. Kautsky had recently published a pamphlet criticizing Lenin for stifling democracy in Soviet Russia and for being "too dictatorial." In this reply, Lenin refers to the Second International, the European-wide communist movement that dissolved during WWI because most of its members (including Kautsky) voted to support their own countries in the war rather than fight against capitalism in general, as Lenin and others wanted. Lenin subsequently formed the Third International along with Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebnicht of the German Socialist Democratic Party and others as well. In the piece, pay attention in particular to how Lenin sees the relationship between dictatorship and democracy.

HOW KAUTSKY TRANSFORMED MARX
INTO AN ORDINARY LIBERAL

The fundamental question that Kautsky discusses in his pamphlet is that of the root content of proletarian revolution, namely, the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is a question that is of the greatest importance for all countries, especially for the advanced ones, especially for the belligerent countries, and especially at the present time. One may say without fear of exaggeration that this is the most important problem of the entire proletarian class struggle. Hence it is necessary to deal with it with particular attention. Kautsky formulates the question as follows: "The contrast between the two socialist trends" (i.e., the Bolsheviks and the non-Bolsheviks) is "the contrast between two radically different methods: the democratic and the dictatorial." (P. 3.) ...

At present we must deal with the main point, viz., with Kautsky's great discovery of the "fundamental contrast" between the "democratic and dictatorial methods." That is the crux of the matter; that is the essence of Kautsky's pamphlet. And that is such a monstrous theoretical muddle, such a complete renunciation of Marxism, that Kautsky, it must be confessed, has far excelled Bernstein. The question of the dictatorship of the proletariat is a question of the relation of the proletarian state to the bourgeois state, of proletarian democracy to bourgeois democracy. One would think that this is as plain as noonday. But Kautsky, like a schoolmaster who has become as dry as dust from quoting the same old textbooks on history, persistently turns his back on the twentieth century and his face to the eighteenth century, and for the hundredth time, in a number of paragraphs, incredibly tediously chews the old cud over the relation of bourgeois democracy to absolutism and medievalism!

      It sounds indeed as if he were chewing rags in his sleep! But this means that he utterly fails to understand what is what! One cannot help smiling at Kautsky's efforts to make it appear that there are people who preach "contempt for democracy" (p. 11) and so forth. It is by such twaddle that Kautsky finds himself compelled to befog and confuse the issue, for he poses it in the manner of the liberals, speaks of democracy in general, and not of bourgeois democracy; he even avoids using this precise, class term, and, instead, tries to speak about "pre-socialist" democracy. This windbag devotes almost one-third of his pamphlet, twenty pages out of a total of sixty-three, to this twaddle, which is so agreeable to the bourgeoisie, for it is tantamount to embellishing bourgeois democracy, and obscures the question of the proletarian revolution. But, after all, the title of Kautsky's pamphlet is The Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Everybody knows that this is the very essence of Marx's doctrine; and after a lot of irrelevant twaddle Kautsky was obliged to quote Marx's words on the dictatorship of the proletariat.

But the way in which he, the "Marxist," did it was simply farcical! Listen to this:
      "This view" (which Kautsky dubs "contempt for democracy") "rests upon a single word of Karl Marx's." This is what Kautsky literally says on page 20. And on page 60 the same thing is repeated even in the form that they (the Bolsheviks) "opportunely recalled the little word . . . about the dictatorship of the proletariat which Marx once used in 1875 in a letter." Here is Marx's "little word":

"Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. There corresponds to this also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

First of all, to call this celebrated proposition of Marx's, which sums up the whole of his revolutionary teaching, "a single word" and even "a little word," is an insult to and complete renunciation of Marxism. It must not be forgotten that Kautsky knows Marx almost by heart, and, judging by all he has written, he has in his desk, or in his head, a number of pigeonholes in which all that was ever written by Marx is most carefully filed so as to be ready at hand for quotation. Kautsky cannot but know that both Marx and Engels, in their letters as well as in their published works, repeatedly spoke about the dictatorship of the proletariat, before and especially after the Paris Commune. Kautsky cannot but know that the formula "dictatorship of the proletariat" is merely a more historically concrete and scientifically exact formulation of the proletariat's task of "smashing" the bourgeois state machine, about which both Marx and Engels, in summing up the experience of the Revolution of 1848, and, still more so, of 1871, spoke for forty years, between 1852 and 1891. ...

Kautsky chose to approach the question in such a way as to begin with a definition of the "word" dictatorship. Very well. Everyone has a sacred right to approach a question in whatever way he pleases. One must only distinguish a serious and honest approach from a dishonest one. Anyone who wanted to be serious in approaching the question in this way ought to have given his own definition of the "word." Then the question would have been put fairly and squarely. But Kautsky does not do that. "Literally," he writes, "the word dictatorship means the abolition of democracy." In the first place, this is not a definition. If Kautsky wanted to avoid giving a definition of the concept dictatorship, why did he choose this particular approach to the question?

Secondly, it is obviously wrong. It is natural for a liberal to speak of "democracy" in general; but a Marxist will never forget to ask: "for what class?" Everyone knows, for instance (and Kautsky the "historian" knows it too), that rebellions, or even strong ferment, among the slaves in antique times at once revealed the fact that the antique state was essentially a dictatorship of the slaveowners. Did this dictatorship abolish democracy among, and for, the slaveowners? Everybody knows that it did not. Kautsky the "Marxist" said this monstrously absurd and untrue thing because he "forgot" the class struggle. . . . In order to transform Kautsky's liberal and false assertion into a Marxian and true one, one must say: dictatorship does not necessarily mean the abolition of democracy for the class that exercises the dictatorship over the other classes; but it necessarily does mean the abolition (or very material restriction, which is also a form of abolition) of democracy for the class over which, or against which, the dictatorship is exercised. But, however true this assertion may be, it does not give a definition of dictatorship. ...

      As a result, we find that, having undertaken to discuss the dictatorship, Kautsky rattled off a great deal of manifest lies, but has not given a definition! Yet, without trusting his mental faculties, he might have had recourse to his memory and extracted from his "pigeonholes" all those instances in which Marx speaks of dictatorship. Had he done so, he would certainly have arrived either at the following definition or at one in substance coinciding with it:
      Dictatorship is rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.

And this simple truth, a truth that is as plain as noonday to every class-conscious worker (who represents the masses, and not an upper stratum of petty-bourgeois scoundrels who have been bribed by the capitalists, such as are the social-imperialists of all countries), this truth, which is obvious to every representative of the exploited classes that are fighting for their emancipation, this truth, which is beyond dispute for every Marxist, has to be "extracted by main force" from the most learned M. Kautsky! How is it to be explained? Simply by that spirit of servility with which the leaders of the Second International, who have become contemptible sycophants in the service of the bourgeoisie, are imbued. Kautsky first committed a sleight of hand by proclaiming the obvious nonsense that the word dictatorship, in its literal sense, means the dictatorship of a single person, and then--on the strength of this sleight of hand--he declared that "hence" Marx's words about the dictatorship of a class were not meant in the literal sense (but in one in which dictatorship does not imply revolutionary violence, but the "peaceful" winning of a majority under bourgeois--mark you--"democracy").

One must, if you please, distinguish between a "condition" and a "form of government." A wonderfully profound distinction; it is like drawing a distinction between the "condition" of stupidity of a man who reasons foolishly and the "form" of his stupidity. Kautsky finds it necessary to interpret dictatorship as a "condition of rulership" (this is the literal expression he uses on the very next page, p. 21), because then revolutionary violence, and violent revolution, disappear. The "condition of rulership" is a condition in which any majority finds itself under . . . "democracy"! Thanks to such a fraudulent trick, revolution happily disappears ! But the trick is too crude and will not save Kautsky. One cannot hide the fact that dictatorship presupposes and implies a "condition," one so disagreeable to renegades, of revolutionary violence of one class against another. The absurdity of drawing a distinction between a "condition" and a "form of government" becomes patent. To speak of forms of government in this connection is trebly stupid, for every schoolboy knows that monarchy and republic are two different forms of government. It must be explained to Mr. Kautsky that both these forms of government, like all transitional "forms of government" under capitalism, are but varieties of the bourgeois state, that is, of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

Lastly, to speak of forms of government is not only a stupid, but also a very crude falsification of Marx, who was very clearly speaking here of this or that form or type of state, and not of forms of government. The proletarian revolution is impossible without the forcible destruction of the bourgeois state machine and the substitution for it of a new one which, in the words of Engels, is "no longer a state in the proper sense of the word." But Kautsky finds it necessary to befog and belie all this -- his renegade position demands it. ... In defining dictatorship, Kautsky tried his utmost to conceal from the reader the fundamental feature of this concept, namely, revolutionary violence. But now the truth is out: it is a question of the contrast between peaceful and violent revolutions.

That is where the trouble lies. Kautsky had to resort to all these subterfuges, sophistries and fraudulent falsifications only in order to dissociate himself from violent revolution, and to conceal his renunciation of it, his desertion to the liberal labour policy, i.e., to the bourgeoisie. That is where the trouble lies. Kautsky the "historian" so shamelessly falsifies history that he "forgets" the fundamental fact that pre-monopoly capitalism -- which reached its zenith actually in the 1870's -- was by virtue of its fundamental economic traits, which found most typical expression in England and in America, distinguished by a, relatively-speaking, maximum fondness for peace and freedom. Imperialism, on the other hand, i.e., monopoly capitalism, which finally matured only in the twentieth century, is, by virtue of its fundamental economic traits, distinguished by a minimum fondness for peace and freedom, and by a maximum and universal development of militarism. To "fail to notice" this in discussing the extent to which a peaceful or violent revolution is typical or probable is to stoop to the position of a most ordinary lackey of the bourgeoisie. ...

To sum up: Kautsky has in a most unparalleled manner distorted the concept dictatorship of the proletariat, and has transformed Marx into an ordinary liberal; that is, he himself has sunk to the level of a liberal who utters banal phrases about "pure democracy," embellishing and glossing over the class content of bourgeois democracy, and shrinking, above all, from the use of revolutionary violence by the oppressed class. By so "interpreting" the concept "revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" as to expunge the revolutionary violence of the oppressed class against its oppressors, Kautsky beat the world record in the liberal distortion of Marx. The renegade Bernstein has proved to be a mere puppy compared with the renegade Kautsky.

BOURGEOIS AND PROLETARIAN
DEMOCRACY       The question which Kautsky has so disgustingly muddled up really stands as follows. If we are not to mock at common sense and history, it is obvious that we cannot speak of "pure Democracy" so long as different classes exist; we can only speak of class democracy. (Be it said in parenthesis that "pure democracy" is not only an ignorant phrase, revealing a lack of understanding both of the class struggle and of the nature of the state, but also a thrice-empty phrase, since in communist society democracy will wither away in the process of changing and becoming a habit, but will never be "pure" democracy.) "Pure democracy" is the mendacious phrase of a liberal who wants to fool the workers. History knows of bourgeois democracy which takes the place of feudalism, and of proletarian democracy which takes the place of bourgeois democracy.

      When Kautsky devotes dozens of pages to "proving" the truth that bourgeois democracy is progressive compared with medievalism, and that the proletariat must unfailingly utilize it in its struggle against the bourgeoisie, that in fact is just liberal twaddle intended to fool the workers. This is a truism, not only for educated Germany, but also for uneducated Russia. Kautsky is simply throwing "learned" dust in the eyes of the workers when, with an important mien, he talks about Weitling and the Jesuits of Paraguay and many other things, in order to avoid telling about the b o u r g e o i s essence of modern, i.e., capitalist, democracy. Kautsky takes from Marxism what is acceptable to the liberals, to the bourgeoisie (the criticism of the Middle Ages, and the progressive historical role of capitalism in general and of capitalist democracy in particular), and discards, passes in silence, glosses over all that in Marxism which is unacceptable to the bourgeoisie (the revolutionary violence of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie for the latter's destruction). That is why Kautsky, by virtue of his objective position and irrespective of what his subjective convictions may be, inevitably proves to be a lackey of the bourgeoisie.

      Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism cannot but remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and a deception for the exploited, for the poor. It is this truth, which forms a most essential part of Marx's teachings, that Kautsky the "Marxist" has failed to understand. On this--the fundamental--issue Kautsky offers "delights" for the bourgeoisie, instead of a scientific criticism of those conditions which make every bourgeois democracy only a democracy for the rich.... Take the fundamental laws of modern states, take their administration, take the right of assembly, freedom of the press, or "equality of all citizens before the law," and you will see at every step evidence of the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy with which every honest and class-conscious worker is familiar. There is not a single state, however democratic, which has no loopholes or reservations in its constitution guaranteeing the bourgeoisie the possibility of dispatching troops against the workers, of proclaiming martial law, and so forth, in case of a "violation of public order," and actually in case the exploited class "violates" its position of slavery and tries to behave in a nonslavish manner. Kautsky shamelessly embellishes bourgeois democracy and omits to mention, for instance, how the most democratic and republican bourgeois in America or Switzerland deal with workers on strike. ...

      Take the bourgeois parliament. Can it be that learned Kautsky has never heard that the more highly democracy is developed, the more the bourgeois parliaments are subjected by the stock exchange and the bankers? This does not mean that we must not make use of bourgeois parliaments (the Bolsheviks made better use of them than any other party in the world, for in 1912-14 we captured the entire workers' curia in the Fourth Duma). But it does mean that only a liberal can forget the historical limitations and conditional character of bourgeois parliamentarism as Kautsky does. Even in the most democratic bourgeois state the oppressed masses at every step encounter the crying contradiction between the formal equality proclaimed by the "democracy" of the capitalists and the thousands of real limitations and subterfuges which turn the proletarians into wage slaves. It is precisely this contradiction that is opening the eyes of the masses to the rottenness, mendacity and hypocrisy of capitalism. It is this contradiction that the agitators and propagandists of Socialism are constantly exposing to the masses, in order to prepare them for revolution! And now that the era of revolutions has begun, Kautsky turns his back upon it and begins to extol the charms of moribund bourgeois democracy.

      Proletarian democracy, of which Soviet government is one of the forms, has brought a development and expansion of democracy hitherto unprecedented in the world, precisely for the vast majority of the population, for the exploited and toiling people. To write a whole pamphlet about democracy, as Kautsky did, in which two pages are devoted to dictatorship and scores to "pure democracy," and fail to notice this fact, means completely distorting the subject in a liberal way. Take foreign policy. In no bourgeois state, not even in the most democratic, is it conducted openly. The masses are deceived everywhere, and in democratic France, Switzerland, America, England this is done on an incomparably wider scale and in an incomparably subtler manner than in other countries. The Soviet government has torn the veil of mystery from foreign policy in a revolutionary manner. Kautsky has not noticed this, he keeps silent about it, although in the era of predatory wars and secret treaties for the "division of spheres of influence" (i.e., for the partition of the world among the capitalist bandits) the subject is one of cardinal importance for on it depends the question of peace, the life and death of tens of millions of people.

Take the organization of the state. Kautsky picks at all manner of "trifles," down to the argument that under the Soviet constitution elections are "indirect," but he misses the essence of the matter. He fails to see the class nature of the state apparatus, of the machinery of state. Under bourgeois dcmocracy the capitalists, by thousands of tricks--which are the more artful and effective the more "pure" democracy is developed--push the masses away from the work of administration, from freedom of the press, the right of assembly, etc. The Soviet government is the first in the world (or strictly speaking the second, because the Paris Commune began to do the same thing) to enlist the masses, specifically the exploited masses, in the work of administration. The toiling masses are barred from participation in bourgeois parliaments (which never decide important questions under bourgeois democracy; they are decided by the stock exchange and the banks) by thousands of obstacles, and the workers know and feel, see and realize perfectly well that the bourgeois parliaments are institutions alien to them, instruments for the oppression of the proletarians by the bourgeoisie, institutions of a hostile class, of the exploiting minority.

The Soviets are the direct organization of the toiling and exploited masses themselves, which helps them to organize and administer their own state in every possible way. And in this it is the vanguard of the toilers and exploited, the urban proletariat, that enjoys the advantage of being best organized by the large enterprises; it is easier for it than for all others to elect and watch elections. The Soviet organization automatically helps to unite all the toilers and exploited around their vanguard, the proletariat. The old bourgeois apparatus- the bureaucracy, the privileges of wealth, of bourgeois education, of social connections, etc. (these practical privileges are the more varied, the more highly bourgeois democracy is developed)--all this disappears under the Soviet form of organization. Freedom of the press ceases to be hypocrisy, because the printing plants and stocks of paper are taken away from the bourgeoisie. The same thing applies to the best buildings, the palaces, the mansions and manor houses. The Soviet power took thousands upon thousands of these best buildings from the exploiters at one stroke, and in this way made the right of assembly--without which democracy is a fraud--a m i l l i o n t i m e s more "democratic" for the masses. Indirect elections to nonlocal Soviets make it easier to hold Congresses of Soviets, they make the entire apparatus less costly, more flexible, more accessible to the workers and peasants at a time when life is seething and it is necessary to be able very quickly to recall one's local deputy or to delegate him to the general Congress of Soviets. Proletarian democracy is a m i l l i o n t i m e s more democratic than any bourgeois democracy; Soviet power is a million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic. ...

     Kautsky does not understand this truth, which is so clear and obvious to every worker, because he has "forgotten," "unlearned" to put the question: democracy for what class? He argues from the point of view of "pure" (i.e., nonclass? or above-class?) democracy. He argues like Shylock: my "pound of flesh" and nothing else. Equality for all citizens--otherwise there is no democracy. We must ask the learned Kautsky, the "Marxist" and "Socialist" Kautsky:
      Can there be equality between the exploited and the exploiters?
      It is monstrous, it is incredible that one should have to put such a question in discussing a book written by the ideological leader of the Second International. But "having put your hand to the plough, don't look back," and having undertaken to write about Kautsky, I must explain to the learned man why there can be no equality between the exploiters and the exploited.