The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky

Lenin’s book criticizing Kautsky’s opportunistic theories which was written from October to November 1918 and was published as a pamphlet in Moscow in the same year. The Chinese translation is included in Vol. 35 of the second revised edition of Complete Works of Lenin.

The victory of the October Revolution and the establishment of the Soviet not only put the issue of proletarian revolution on the agenda in many European countries, but also aroused a debate and sharp ideological struggle around the issue of the path of October Revolution in the international communist movement. In August 1918, Kautsky, leader of the Second International, published a book titled The Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Vienna. He openly opposed, on the side of the bourgeoisie, the proletarian revolution and dictatorship. Back then, Lenin was resting in Gorki a village near Moscow, so as to recover from his illness due the assassination. He was furious when he saw the book. Lenin called Kautsky a renegade and pointed out that everything in the book was full of renegade spirit. In order to fight back Kautsky’s rampant attacks, defend the newly-born Soviet, and defend the path of October Revolution and its achievements, Lenin, from October 9 to November 10, 1918, wrote this glorious book The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky with strong revolutionary willpower. In the same year, it was published by the Kommunist Publishers. Before the book, Lenin wrote a short article with the same title so as to “demonstrate our standpoint as soon as possible” and published it in Pravda on October 11, 1918. The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky is another polemical theoretical book after The State and Revolution expounding on the proletarian revolution and dictatorship. This book consists of eight sections with a preface and two appendices. Lenin explained the purpose and significance of this book in his preface. Lenin pointed out that Kautskyism was not accidental, but a social product of various contradictions in the Second International, a product of being faithful to Marxism in word and succumbing to opportunism in reality. The most basic theoretical mistake in Kautsky’s pamphlet The Dictatorship of the Proletariat was his opportunistic distortion of Marx’s state theory. At a time when proletarian revolution has actually been put on the agenda of many countries, it was necessary to analyze the sophistry of renegades like Kautsky and his complete abandonment of Marxism. Lenin focused on three issues: the state system, the government system and the constitution. He thoroughly exposed and criticized the sophistry of Kautsky who was a renegade, and his words and deeds, which betrayed Marxism completely.

Lenin defended Marxism and the path of October Revolution. Lenin’s main contents and viewpoints are as follows. (1) The dictatorship of the proletariat was the fundamental content of the proletarian revolution and was also the type of proletarian state. Kautsky’s only recognized the dictatorship of the proletariat superficially, he actually wantonly distorted and belittled it, saying that the dictatorship of the proletariat is only a “word” that Marx accidentally used in Critique of the Gotha Programme. Lenin pointed out that this was an insult to Marxism and a complete betrayal of Marxism. With regard to the dictatorship of the proletariat, Marx not only explained precisely that it was the task of the proletariat to “smash” the bourgeois state machine, but also pointed out that it was a form or a type of the state, not the form of governance. In response to Kautsky’s view that dictatorship meant the elimination of democracy and individual dictatorship that was not bound by any law, Lenin pointed out that dictatorship did not necessarily mean the elimination of democracy in the class that exercised dictatorship, but it certainly meant the elimination or strong limitation of democracy in the class that was the object of dictatorship. Dictatorship did not mean personal dictatorship either, because dictatorship was exercised by a class. Dictatorship was a regime that relied directly on violence and was not subject to any legal restriction. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat was a regime that was obtained and maintained by the proletariat through violent means against the bourgeoisie and was not subject to any legal restriction. Kautsky “forgot” the class struggle and removed the class nature of dictatorship and democracy. He intentionally obliterated class struggle and violent revolution. Lenin also refuted Kautsky’s opposition between democracy and dictatorship. Lenin pointed out that the dictatorship of the proletariat was a comparison between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, and between proletarian democracy and bourgeois democracy. The opposition between Bolshevik and Menshevik opportunism was the opposition between the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat or the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, rather than the opposition between the democratic method and the dictatorship method. Any political power was the unity of democracy and dictatorship, a democracy practised within its own class and dictatorship exercised over the opposite classes. There was no “pure democracy” in the world and it was impossible. To advocate “pure democracy” was to worship bourgeois democracy and deny the dictatorship of the proletariat. According to Lenin, Kautsky had made an unprecedented distortion of the dictatorship of the proletariat and had degenerated to the point of being a liberal. He used “pure democracy” to whitewash and obliterate the class content of bourgeois democracy. He feared the revolutionary violence of the oppressed classes, thus wiped out this revolutionary violence. He had broken the world record in distorting Marx’s thoughts in a liberal way. (2) The Soviet is the Russian form of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the alliance of workers and peasants as its foundation. Lenin stated that Soviet, a class organization of the proletariat, must be transformed into a state organization, and the dictatorship of the proletariat must replace that of the bourgeoisie. Kautsky acknowledged the great role and historical significance of the Soviet in the revolution, but opposed the transformation of the Soviet, which fought as a class, into a state organization. He opposed the smashing of the bourgeois state machine and the transfer of state power to the working class. In fact, this was a betrayal of Marxism and of the cause of the proletariat. Lenin refuted Kautsky’s fallacy of denying the alliance of workers and peasants, and expounded the importance and possibility for the proletariat to adhere to this alliance. Under the guise of “economic analysis”, Kautsky worked for the bourgeoisie. He argued that in Russia, where small peasants took up four-fifths of the Russian population, the vast majority of small privately-owned peasants must be in contradiction with or even hostile to the proletariat who demanded public ownership. Therefore, it was unnecessary and impossible to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat by the alliance of workers and peasants. Lenin’s hold that the exploiters among the small producers were not more than one tenth, and the small producers were bound to waver between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Most working peasants were in line with the proletariat in their basic interests and were the most reliable allies of the proletariat. The Bolshevik Party relied on the alliance of workers and peasants to transform the Russian bourgeois revolution into a socialist revolution. The alliance of the proletariat and the working peasants was the fundamental guarantee for the transformation and for the victory of the revolution, and is also the solid foundation of the Soviet state. (3) Proletarian democracy was the highest type of democracy. Lenin pointed out that in class society, democracy had class nature. “Pure democracy” was a lie used by liberals to fool workers. Historically, there were bourgeois democracy instead of feudal system, and proletarian democracy instead of bourgeois democracy. Compared with the medieval system, bourgeois democracy was a great progress in history. However, in the most democratic bourgeois state, oppressed people could find striking contradictions anytime and anywhere: on the one hand, it was the formal equality advocated by bourgeois “democracy”; and on the other hand, bourgeois “democracy” included numerous the real restrictions and tricks that made the proletariat become slaves. Therefore, it was always a narrow, incomplete, hypocritical and deceptive democracy, a paradise for the rich and a trap and fraud for the exploited and for the poor. Proletarian democracy was a new type of democracy that had been developed and expanded unprecedentedly in the world. It was a new type of democracy for the majority of workers. It should replace bourgeois democracy with proletarian democracy. Kautsky tried his best to avoid the bourgeois nature of modern democracy, that is, capitalist democracy. He advocated “pure democracy” and “general democracy”, saying that the proletariat state should guarantee the “equality” of the exploited and the exploiters. He talked about the transition to socialism in a “peaceful or democratic method”. In fact, it was beautifying bourgeois democracy and obliterating proletarian revolution. Lenin pointed out that the exploiter and the exploiter were class relations, and there could never be the real equality. The bourgeois state implemented democracy for the proletariat while suppressing the exploiter. The Soviet was a state form of proletarian dictatorship and a new democratic system. It exercised dictatorship over the exploiters but democracy over the oppressed. This made the Soviet one million times more democratic than the most democratic bourgeois republic. (4) Deprivation of the voting right of the bourgeoisie was not a necessary sign of the dictatorship of the proletariat. “It” was a purely Russian problem, not a general issue of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Kautsky opposed the Soviet Republic and the Soviet constitution that deprived exploiters of their right to vote. He touted constitutional conference. In response to his ridiculous behavior, Lenin pointed out that this equaled that the struggle against the bourgeoisie should not be carried out to the end, that the bourgeoisie should not be overthrown, and that the proletariat should reconcile, compromise and cooperate with the bourgeoisie. In fact, the Soviet Republic, the higher democratic form that replaced the Constituent Assembly, was the inevitable result of the development of the Russian proletarian revolution.

Lenin argued that when conditions deemed necessary the proletariat would deprive capitalists of the right to vote and dissolve the counter-revolutionary parliament. This was a Marxist viewpoint derived from the basic principles of Marxism. When the Bolsheviks put forward the slogan of the dictatorship of the proletariat long before the October Revolution, they did not say in advance that the exploiters would be deprived of the right to vote. At the beginning the Soviet assembly organs had no constitutional work framework. On July 10, 1918, the Fifth All-Russia Congress of Soviets passed the first constitution of the socialist country in the history of the international communist movement: “The Soviet Constitution”. After the October Revolution, the bourgeoisie was deprived of the right to vote by the Soviet Constitution because, both the bourgeois constitutional democrats and the right-wing social revolutionary party, flagrantly opposed the Soviets and were indulged in organizing armed rebellions. Therefore, the deprivation of the bourgeoisie’s right to vote did not follow the Bolshevik’s “plan”, but naturally occurred in the course of the Bolshevik’s struggle with the bourgeoisie under specific conditions. This precisely showed that the Soviet was not an organization for petty bourgeoisie to compromise with capitalists and conduct parliamentary empty talks, nor was it an organization for social imperialists and social pacifists who sold themselves to the bourgeoisie, but a truly revolutionary proletarian organ for life-and-death struggle with the exploiters.

The Proletarian Revolution and Renegade Kautsky has great historical and practical significance. It not only defended the path of October Revolution and criticized Kautsky’s right opportunism, but also served as a powerful ideological weapon for Marxists to oppose the Right opportunism and social democracy. The article further developed the theory of the proletarian revolution and dictatorship expounded in the book The State and Revolution and made great contributions to the defense and development of Marxism.