The 'Renegade' Kautsky and his
Disciple Lenin
This article is the preface to the Red & Black
Notes edition of Gilles Dauvé's The Renegade Kautsky
and his Disciple Lenin to read the entire article follow the link
at the bottom of the page.
The collapse of actual existing socialism' in the years
1989-92 has meant many things to the old left. For the social
democratic parties it has meant the end of their hollow mouthing of
words of opposition to the capitalist world order. In past decades
the social democratic parties, who long ago abandoned any presence of
a final goal of socialism, spoke of a kinder gentler capitalism
bathed in the language of Keynesianism. Hereafter social democrats
speak exclusively in the language of neo- liberalism and the market.
This newspeak has taken many forms, be it Blairism' in Britain,
the Third way' in continental Europe or even in the case of the
Canadian New Democratic Party, the Canadian Way.' Since
capitalism no longer requires Keynesian solutions, it has dispensed
with the services of those who espouse that ideology. Thus it is
comical that while the social democrats have jettisoned the reform of
capitalism in order to preserve their physical existence, certain
Trotskyist revolutionaries' operating within the shadow of
social democracy continue to argue that the party will disappear
unless they adopt socialist' measures. (i.e. retain their
neo-Keynesianism).
On the other hand a new lease on life has been granted to the old
Leninist groups: Partly because conditions within the former Soviet
bloc have become so awful that they have actually succeeded in making
the former state-capitalist regimes look appetizing. Partly because
many Leninist groups can now argue that what collapsed in the Soviet
union was Stalinism not communism; even though many of them had
argued the Soviet experiment represented a higher stage of
society.
Pointing to the old Soviet Union, the Trotskyists argue that its
collapse has been a defeat for the workers' movement. This defeat can
only be overcome by rallying to their banner and the revolutionary
party which will lead the workers to victory. What is not
acknowledged is the link between social democracy and Leninism. Both
sought, in different ways, to manage the workers. The workers'
movement is reaching the end of a stage whereby the state was seen as
a possible means for creating a new society. For the social democrats
this goal was to be accomplished through a parliament, although as
noted they had long ceased to believe in the promised land. For the
Leninists through the dictatorship of the proletariat, or in reality
the dictatorship of the Bolshevist party acting in the
interests' of the workers.
Though Marx expected the British working class to create the first
mass workers party , it was the German movement which achieved this
task. In the Social- Democratic Party of German (SPD) there was an
almost perfect division of labour. After the repeal of the anti-
socialist laws in 1890 the party acted in parliament to secure
reforms, while the unions managed the working class. Both of these
factions were simply incorporated into the governing body - not to
say that the unions and the party were now simply agents of the
bourgeois state, but their primary identification was with the
nation-state. Much is made of the betrayal by the Second
International in 1914, which was described by some as an instrument
of peacetime, but not of war. In fact the International did not
betray, but followed the logical conclusion of its identification
with the bourgeois state in its respective members countries.
Today Karl Kautsky is virtually unknown out side of left-wing
circles, but a century ago he was the authoritative voice of
Marxism' in the European context. Editor of the SPD's journal
Die Neue Zeit, Kautsky represented the tradition of orthodox
Marxism. While today Kautsky is virtually unknown his greatest
disciple Lenin still enjoys a fame and renown. Kautsky's views are
mostly known through the polemics Lenin and Trotsky hurled at him
during the years after the Bolshevik Revolution: Lenin in The
Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky and Trotsky in
Terrorism and Communism. Eighty years later the term
Kautskyism' occasionally rears its head as a term of abuse,
used in the same way ultra left' is employed: reviled but
seldom understood by those who employ it.
Yet despite the break, it should be remembered that Lenin was once
Kautsky's most loyal follower. Many of Lenin's early Lenin's
defenders argue that Lenin broke with Kautsky in deed if not in
actuality prior to 1914 and his actions after then serve as proof of
the break. Yet while Lenin broke from Kautsky politically he retained
Kautsky's views on many theoretical questions.
Much of Lenin's What is to Be Done? is drawn directly from
Kautsky who also believed that socialist consciousness' would
have to be injected into the working class from outside. As a result
Lenin was to be deeply suspicious of the unbridled spontaneity of the
Soviets of the 1905 revolution. While Lenin cried "All Power to the
Soviets" at times in 1917 it is clear his actions meant "All Power to
the Soviets so it may be given to the Bolshevik Party." Despite his
defenders' rejection of the crude formulas of What is to Be Done?,
Lenin himself never repudiated the book.
A second point made by Lenin's defenders as evidence of Lenin's
rejection of Kautskyism.' is State & Revolution,
which is offered as Lenin's rediscovery of the revolutionary Marxist
tradition. While Lenin concedes that anarchist critics and the
Pannekoek were right against Kautsky, he did not uncritically endorse
all of their views. Lenin may well have written that under socialism
under any cook can govern, but in State & Revolution he
still admitted a fondness for the German postal system and suggested
it might represent a model for socialism organisation. While
organising Russian society on the same structure as the German post
office might have produced some advances, it was certainly not
socialism.
But more than Lenin's fine words in State & Revolution,
what were the actions that followed it? The ways in which the
Bolsheviks undermined, crushed or co- opted the factory committees,
the Soviets and the genuine organisations of workers' power in Russia
have been well documented elsewhere and need not be recapitulated
here. For those who argue the Lenin of State & Revolution,
there is also the Lenin of one-man management, and of the suppression
of factions inside and outside the party, and of Kronstadt. All in
the name of the working class. What Kautsky could not or would not do
with reformist measures, Lenin did with revolutionary ones.
The article which follows this introduction originally appeared
under the name Jean Barrot, a pen name for Gilles Dauvé. The
article The Renegade Kautsky and His Disciple Lenin was
written as a preface for a French Edition of Kautsky's article The
Three Sources of Marxism: The Historic Work of Marx. (Spartacus,
serie B, no. 78) This edited translation was first published in
English in 1987 by Wildcat (UK) as Leninism or Communism.
Kautsky's article was the inspiration for Lenin's article The
Three Sources and the Three Component Parts of Marxism. It is
hoped that the republication of Dauvé's will serve as a small
warning to who seek to discover a revolutionary theory in
Leninism.
D. E. 8/00
The
'Renegade' Kautsky and his Disciple Lenin
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