Source: Kommunisti, issue 11, December 15. 1925
Translated by ML-theory.
The Noskeists don’t always show their true faces. They will gladly hide them behind pleasant phrases.* Especially the “lefts”, who even toy with the word “revolution”. When it comes to the Soviet Union and the Russian revolution generally, profound confusion and hypocritical dishonesty prevails among them. For that reason it feels refreshing to read from Kautsky’s new book, where the old man certainly doesn’t hide his opinion. It is called “The International and Soviet Russia”. It is also not too long, because the author doesn’t think it necessary to provide any proof for his words. He simply throws out accusations.
It begins with Marx – where else. It explains how the main goal of Marx’s International was to fight against Russian despotism. And he thinks that is still the main goal of “the socialist workers’ international” – as the II international calls itself. The reader is naturally confused, but to Kautsky it is all a very simple matter: that despotism is now represented – by the bolsheviks. These bolsheviks, says Kautsky, were our comrades once, and together with them we fought with spiritual weapons for the souls of the proletariat. And even then they “tried to terrorize other parties” – Kautsky doesn’t explain how. And bolshevism rose up as an “active and ruthless fighter” for revolutionary goals.
“But after capitalists and large land owners had been uprooted, the real white guards beaten back, it became evident that merely robbing the wealthy, which any robber and criminal knows how to do, is not socialism and bolshevik Russia lacks all requirements for building it, so that production was more and more hindered, the misery of the masses ever greater, the more bolshevik rule was solidified. The workers rose against the bolsheviks. They raged against the workers, socialists were persecuted, these were even greater horrors than tsarism”. So, we have – according to Kautsky, come to a point where only “unprincipled scoundrels as well as ignorant and unthinking dreamers” want to be in the Comintern and that the primary function of Soviet power now is to “enslave, slacken, degrade and dumb down the proletariat both inside and outside Russia, i.e. make it ever less capable of freeing itself.” And “its work, if it was to be successful, wouldn’t lead the international proletariat closer to emancipation but even further away from it”.
Then Kautsky fires his main shot: “It (bolshevism) is today the greatest roadblock preventing the rise of the working class, “even worse than Horthy’s infamous rule in Hungary or Mussolini’s in Italy, who at least don’t make all oppositionist activity by the proletariat as impossible as Soviet rule”. The Soviet government is according to Kautsky “the proletariat’s most dangerous enemy” and defeating it is “one of the most important missions of the socialist workers’ international”. And “about this mission we should all be in agreement, the question is only how to complete it”.
“The most peaceful route is always the best, demanding the least amount of casualties” says Kautsky “as long as it leads to success!” And so it is. But he knows that the roads taken by men are not determined by their wishes. And a “tyranny” like bolshevism can only be toppled with violence. With comical hypocrisy he sighs that supposedly “nothing would have been more wonderful than if we, the critics of bolshevism had been wrong”. But no, “it hasn’t produced anything but torrents of denunciations from its critics”. Kautsky explains with fake sympathetic wisdom that if the bolsheviks could grant a little freedom, then they would still have some hope, but more and more they must rely on bayonets and executioners.
And he has selected an appropriate analogy: “In America there are numerous millionaires who in their youth were the poorest proletarians. Their proletarian origins don’t prevent them from becoming the most ruthless and cold hearted exploiters of the proletariat. We see the same with the bolsheviks”, who are different from other ruling classes only “because of their exceptional cruelty and shamelessness”.
And ceremoniously Karl Kautsky proclaims: “like any other military despotism, like the military monarchies of the Romanovs, Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns it is probably only possible to overthrow them with violence”.
Kautsky cannot say will a “democratic rebellion” rise against the bolsheviks, “which captures the whole country’s territory with one strike – and only such an uprising can win”, or will there be separate rebellions “as now are happening daily in Russia!” In the latter case Russia will proceed towards ever increasing degradation like the Turkey of the last century! According to him, soon a point has been reached where “every democratic movement in Russia is hopeless”.
But there is a small point of light flashing at him: the bolsheviks must engage in trade. And “to this the International must grasp”. But before we come to Kautsky’s “practical” program, we can follow him in the realm of theory. He says: “The bolshevik way of thinking, doesn’t see theoretical abstractions (generalized ideas) as tools to help in comprehension but as accurate depictions of reality, doesn’t see any transitional periods. It sees only the dictatorship of capital or the dictatorship of the proletariat, only total capitalism or total socialism, nothing in between”.
After this sentence one has to ask if Kautsky is actually this ignorant or if he relies on the ignorance of others. Has anyone more precisely than Lenin – for example in his text “The tax in kind” – explained the numerous economic modes and transitional stages that exist in Russia right now! Leninists also look at every state only through analysing its class content: what class or classes hold power? And this precise analysis of reality demonstrates that the general-humane democracy, the “rule of the people” above classes preached by Kautsky and co. in the various European countries today is only well or poorly masked bourgeois dictatorship.
It is a myth that the bolsheviks supposedly can’t think of any other democracy than that which is a mere mask for bourgeois dictatorship. After all, during 1905-1917 Lenin’s slogan was “the workers’ and peasants’ democratic dictatorship” and he defined very carefully what he meant by it. The democracy supported by Kautsky and represented by Ebert, has proven to be exactly what we communists labeled it as – dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. And when it comes to dictatorship, Kautsky has tried to define this concept (abstraction) but has done it poorly and in an unmarxist way as Lenin has shown in his book “The proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky”.
But lets us return to Kautsky’s “practical” (in actuality: imaginative) “analysis”. He argues that now that the bolsheviks have plundered Russia clean, they have no other salvation but to “rob the much richer Western Europe”. And that is why they need a world revolution! But since it hasn’t come, the bolsheviks began working towards peace and to have normal interactions with capitalist governments. According to Kautsky’s logic “this aim rules out world revolution”. But the bolsheviks are illogical: they simultaneously engage in trade, and believe in the world revolution. This “is not so problematic to the leaders of bolshevism since they never aimed for the proletariat to free itself in the first place. They think the proletariat is not capable of doing it” – This claim like all the rest, Kautsky considers so self evident he doesn’t even try to justify it.
Now Kautsky realizes – inspite of his mental confusion – that people will remind him, that surely there is something anti-capitalist in the bolsheviks since bourgeois of all kinds so fear and hate them. This is why he says: “but for these reasons they haven’t become a regime favorable to capital”, they – those cunning bolsheviks “don’t want to give up their position (as “exploiters of the workers”) to the capitalist class”. And “that is why they are now hovering above the proletariat and capital, trying to use sometimes one, sometimes the other, as their tool”. – See what a masterful utilization of “marxism”: there is a power belonging neither to the workers or the bourgeoisie!
To please the imperialists Kautsky goes on to say “the same rulers command both the III International and soviet diplomacy too”. And at the same time as the capitalists in all countries are persecuting the communists and their press passionately agitates against the bolsheviks, Kautsky wants us to believe that “the fear of world revolution stops frightening governments outside Russia”.
– What about eye-witness descriptions from Russia? – Kautsky understands that someone can ask him that, when he declares that the Russian economy is irredeemably in shambles. For that reason he says that “3/4 of what is said about Russia around the world, is lies”. And he defines the meaning of this more exactly: “descriptions where conditions in Russia are said to be bad, are partially true, partially falsehoods”, and “nearly everything is false in the rosy descriptions of the eye-wittnesses”. – How wonderfully simple and clear: the bolsheviks are not only “liars and frauds”, but all the social-democrat workers, union leaders and bourgeois – they have all been deceived by the bolsheviks. According to Kautsky its clear the bolsheviks don’t want to give education to the masses but to restrict it. Of course, after saying this he musn’t admit that the bolsheviks publish in massive editions not only works of Marx and Engels, but also Plekhanov and Kautsky. At this point Kautsky probably even considers his own earlier writings to be dangerous.
Kautsky thinks there is one solution that can achieve something: loans. According to his knowledge, they have been “since the beginning of capitalism, a powerful tool for enabling or hindering liberation”. But he fears that even such methods won’t work on the bolsheviks. And therefore giving loans to them, would only solidify their “tyranny”. So more than advising the capitalists to give loans, he advises against it. But graciously he explains that it is not the business of “international socialism” to demand the bolsheviks to pay the Tsar’s debts. He points out that even the German government has first printed a flood of money and then let some of its property be requisitioned. Kautsky assures us that social-democrats oppose both kinds of requisitioning, but since it has been done, it cannot be undone.
The main point is that Kautsky sees practically no hope for “peaceful development” with Russia and puts his hopes to the violent overthrow of the bolsheviks. “That shameless plundering which the bolsheviks are committing in relation to the Russian productive forces makes such an end rather likely”. But now comes a difficulty: if he considers rebellion in Russia unavoidable, then won’t that mean the mensheviks will become a party of armed revolution? – Kautsky acts like he is very clever when he explains that it certainly doesn’t mean that. He only “theoretically” explains how armed revolution is hopeless at our current stage of development. And especially hopeless it is in the land of the bolsheviks, who have “the most disciplined army in the world” and the “cheka”, which is unlike anything in the modern world or in history!
Kautsky has invented a comical theory that his ilk – i.e. mensheviks and the like – didn’t originally consider rebellion against the bolsheviks to be justified, because back then they still “supported themselves by the wide proletarian and peasant masses”. Although those noskes – according to Kautsky – knew even back then that “their (the bolsheviks’) methods wouldn’t lead to the goal”, they would even “postpone the emancipation of the proletariat”. But back then there was still (!) the fear that overthrowing the bolsheviks would help the white guards in power. Only in Georgia such a danger never existed.
Now everyone knows that this Kautsky’s historiography has to be extensively corrected: first of all the mensheviks have fought with arms against soviet power, and particular during those times – even according to Kautsky’s testimony – when it helped the white guards. Secondly, the support enjoyed by the bolsheviks is much larger now, than during those hard and trying days. And thirdly, all of the menshevik predictions that – “tomorrow they’ll be overthrown” – have proven to be nothing but empty wind. But without getting any wiser Kautsky flails even more frenziedly.
And his conclusion is that now, any uprising against the bolsheviks is justified. There is no risk of reaction. “Because of the simple reason that the bolsheviks have implemented everything reactionary that was ever possible in Russia”. Nobody can implement a greater reaction. Any government that would replace the bolsheviks, would be preferable. And one of the “preferable things” of the new counter-revolutionary government according to Kautsky would be – no, don’t laugh – that it would be weak! He thinks a government which is disunited, is the best!
That a weak government would make the country a launching area for the imperialists, that an internally disunited government would make all reform impossible – these rudimentary facts don’t fit into Kautsky’s head. He wants a weak and disorganized government in Russia. And he wants it through a rebellion. “We don’t have to fear that by an armed uprising we are helping reaction”, he affirms over and over. Every change in Russia would in his opinion – help freedom.
According to Kautsky there is yet another reason to hurry in defeating the bolsheviks, because “they try to start fires in all the countries of the East, so that when a suitable time comes they can set the whole world on fire and rob it clean”. There is Kautsky’s clear understanding of the liberation struggles of the peoples of Asia. He declares ceremoniously that “it is out of the question that social-democrats would try to save the bolshevik system”. Neutrality in such a situation would be “political suicide”.
– What situation? – In that uprising of the broad masses, which according to Kautsky soon will rise against the bolsheviks. But which the mensheviks are not allowed to prepare. But which they must join en masse. “Conditions in Soviet Russia are so terrible”, he exclaims “the government’s policy so horrid, that we must take into account the possibility of such an uprising”. And the International cannot condemn participation in such rebellions.
Kautsky also discusses the topic of intervention, intervening into Russia’s affairs from the outside. He knows that armed interventions from the outside have proven “misguided and harmful”. He doesn’t entirely disregard such projects, even says it is a responsibility of the International, but it also has its negative sides. etc.
But enough with Kautsky’s pamphlet. At first you might think the whole work is just an old man’s ramblings; that’s why the claims and predictions in it are so insane. But considering the issue more, the pamphlet comes exactly on queue as the imperialists are building an allied front and thinking how to turn it against the socialist Soviet Union. It is not so easy. The sympathies of the workers of the world are so firmly on the side of Soviet rule. The delegations visiting here have brought such undeniable greetings to their class comrades, that even the most conservative working class strata are thinking: there must be something happening in the land of the Soviets, which belongs to us all. It is indisputable that large industry, transportation and trade are in the hands of the state – i.e. nationalized, which is the demand of the workers of all countries. It is also clear that Russia has the most progressive labor protection laws: 8 hour work day etc. Wages rise and the national economy grows. So does culture. The workers at least have a substantial participation in the management of economic and other affairs. The people generally are studying like never before (literacy, schools, courses, science, literature).
The opinion of the workers is that this ought to develop even further. In many countries (Germany, Great Britain) it is the immediate interest of the workers, that industrial goods are exported to Russia and from there are imported raw materials and bread. And if they oppose war generally, then even more so they oppose plans to launch a war against Russia. – Why war? They ask. What reason is there? And the answer is clear: the capitalists hate Soviet power. But the people won’t accept such a reason to go to war.
Therefore “testimonials” about how Russia has such horrible conditions and such chaos that every action against that government is justified, are very welcome to the imperialists. And if they would succeed in starting their war, they would spread Kautsky’s booklet in millions of copies. That is the first significance of it.
The second, is that it is the private opinion of the leaders of the Second International, although they don’t dare express this opinion so boldly in their home country. But those social-traitors aren’t very theoretical anyway – they are “men of action”. They carry out their obscenities without stopping to justify them more deeply than saying that this is necessary “to save the situation” or “for the interests of the workers”. But they are not opposed if now Kautsky – who used to criticize them from a marxist point of view – now proves in a quite “marxist” way, that they must fight against the bolsheviks with all their might.
It is quite pleasing to them, because the bolsheviks have done much harm to them: riled up the workers against them, shaken the authority of their bureaucracy. They have a bad feeling that it could lead to something even worse: they won’t elect them to positions or the parliament. For that reason, down with the communists. But the issue has its underside for the noskeists too. And this is understood by the “left” noskeists. Talk like that leads to loss of support from the masses. They, quite simply won’t believe it. Instead one should say, what the bolsheviks are doing, would be good, but they simply don’t know how to do it. We will do it better. Once the appropriate time comes. – The time isn’t now. – And even more skillful noskes say: what has happened in Russia has indeed been a great and necessary revolution. And it is due to the bolsheviks that it was so actively carried out. But it was a peasant and bourgeois revolution. The mistake of the bolsheviks is that they are trying to make it socialist. It won’t succeed. C a n ‘ t succeed. It is too early. So – all honor to the bolsheviks. But – it is their time to lose. And they will lose. But we won’t help in defeating them. Let the bourgeoisie and peasants do it. In the state which will that way be created – whatever it will look like – the mensheviks will be the labor party, the opposition to the bourgeoisie. And socialism can only be tried in Russia much later than in the western countries. In any case, now the period of wars and revolutions is over. So we mustn’t rush. We should only carry out “class struggle”, even “uncompromising class struggle” in the Old kautskyite way.
Thus, speak the left-noskes. And they don’t welcome Kautsky’s book. It ruins a good game. For that reason they rise against it. In the press and in the Marseilles congress the Austrian left-noske O. Bauer, their leading theoretician, says that “the bolsheviks are undoubtedly supported by one segment of the Russian proletariat, undoubtedly a revolutionary, undoubtedly socialist party”. And therefore it shouldn’t be permitted to fight for their overthrow. We should only “fight them” with opinions.
This issue, Russia, threatened to become a dead end for the Marseilles congress. But the noskeists are experienced diplomats. Like their bourgeois masters, they also find the right “formulas”, the right turns of phrase. I.e. when they can’t agree in some issue, they postpone taking a stance and approve a declaration that says nothing. Certain parties, including the brazenly counter-revolutionary social-democracy of Finland – were present at the Marseilles congress – arguing that Soviet Russia is an immediate threat to peace. The British and others strongly opposed this. And so, a dishonest decision was reached that the USSR has been recognized by the bourgeois powers primarily – due to them – the noskes! And this gives them the right (!) to urge the people of Russia to fight to achieve democracy and freedom and to resist the aggressive conquest policy of their government! – And even the “left” noskes agreed to this. Their guilty conscience has been pacified. And now they can tell the workers, that no, they haven’t supported intervening in Russian affairs. But Kautsky can say that, you see, the Marseilles congress didn’t declare rebellion against bolsheviks to be counter-revolution.
He has published a couple of his writings in a periodical of the Austrian noskeists where he discusses his claims and adds a few new slanders. Since even the menshevik Dan has given similar counter-arguments to Kautsky’s book as Bauer (1), Kautsky replies that these comrades are following late Martov’s line, but he follows that of Axelrod. And he thinks such “differences of opinion” don’t in any way have to hinder “practical unity”. An equally valuable admission is the comical statement: in the Second International others can consider the bolsheviks to be bandits and reactionaries, who it is every honest person’s duty to overthrow, and others can be of the opinion that they are socialists, with whom we do have “disagreements”, but whose overthrow would help counter-revolution. How both can belong to the same “International” – that they can explain to those workers who are still interested in such riddles.
It is enough for us to conclude that Karl Kautsky, who before the war began moving further and further away from marxism and during the war became the best accomplice of the noskeists by explaining, that the international is not a weapon for time of war but for time of peace (in war, we must kill each other and not fraternize), and who then proved to be a complete renegade in relation to the Russian revolution – and the German revolution too – has shown that from being a renegade there is a direct line to being a traitor, and from indirectly supporting counter-revolution to directly – not only supporting it but preaching it. And that is a very significant achievement. Kautsky has torn off the mask of noskeism and proven that even the “lefts” behind their mask are playing the same game with the blatant lackeys of the bourgeoisie, only being more cowardly, scheming and vile.
Y. S.
Footnotes:
*Translator’s note: Noske was the German social-democrat minister who ordered the crushing of the German revolution and the killing of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.
1) The most humorous thing is that even the leader of the Russian counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie Miluykov has said that Kautsky’s claims are untrue.
ML-Theory 