workerweekly

800 January 14 2010 i

Kautsky, Lenin andthe ‘April theses’Could Karl Kautsky - the ‘pope’ turned ‘renegade’ of orthodox Marxism - have influenced Vladimir Ilych’s‘April theses’? Here we print a Karl Kautsky article from April 1917, translated into English for the first time byBen Lewis. It is introduced by Lars T Lih, a historian based in Canada, who has been at the forefront of re-examining the complex relationship between these two widely misunderstood figures of the 20th centuryworkers’ movement

probably due to a misunderstanding. ButKautsky’s actions and articles after theoutbreak of the war made the scales fall fromLenin’s eyes, and he renounced Kautsky and‘Kautskyism’.

This standard story is wrong on oneessential point: Lenin never renounced“Kautsky, when he was a Marxist” - the phraseused constantly by Lenin after the outbreakof war to refer to the pre-war Kautsky. On thecontrary, Lenin continued to energeticallyaffirm the Marxist credentials and insights ofKautsky’s writings, especially up to andincluding 1909. Lenin ferociously attackedwhat he called Kautskianstvo, a term that hecoined to sum up Kautsky’s behaviour after1914. But Kautskianstvo most explicitly did notmean ‘the system of views set forth by Kautskyin his pre-war writings’ - in fact, the most glaringfeature of Kautskianstvo was preciselyKautsky’s failure to live up to those views.

I have documented this point elsewhere.Here I will just assert that there is nothingparadoxical about Lenin being influenced byKautsky, even in 1917, on issues other thansuch wartime controversies as the nature ofimperialism and the need for a purified thirdinternational.

Let us now turn to Lenin’s ideologicalscenarios prior to April 1917. Up to this point,Lenin had one revolutionary scenario forRussia and another for Europe: democraticrevolution in Russia and socialist revolutionin Europe. These two scenarios could be linkedexternally: democratic revolution in Russiamight spark off socialist revolution in Europe,which in turn might open up socialistpossibilities even in backward Russia. Thiskind of linkage can be seen in the theses ofOctober 1915: “The task of the proletariat inRussia is to carry out the bourgeois democraticrevolution in Russia to the end, in order toignite the socialist revolution in Europe”(Lenin’s emphasis).

But, as the theses of October 1915 show,Lenin did not envision the possibility ofRussia itself moving toward socialism prior toand independent of socialist revolution inEurope. True, a democratic revolution inRussia required proletarian state power -nevertheless, this proletarian state power

would set itself only democratic tasks. Why?The reasons can be found in an articleKautsky wrote in 1906 that had a title similarto that of his 1917 article: ‘Prospects anddriving forces of the Russian Revolution’(1906), as compared to ‘Prospects of theRussian Revolution’ (1917).

Kautsky’s 1906 article was greatly valuedby Lenin as an authoritative endorsement ofbasic Bolshevik strategy. Kautsky arguedthat the Russian bourgeoisie was incapableof leading a thorough-going democraticrevolution because it was too fearful of theinevitable result: namely, the growing powerof the socialist proletariat. The workerswere therefore the only class capable ofleading a democratic revolution to the end- precisely because their ultimate goal wasnot democracy, but socialism. But in order tocarry out this gigantic task of overthrowingthe tsar the workers needed to win the loyaltyof the revolutionary peasants away from thebourgeoisie.

Therefore, concluded Kautsky, theupcoming Russian Revolution had movedbeyond the standard model of the bourgeoisrevolution in one important aspect: namely,the bourgeoisie itself would not - could not -be the leading class. But in another sense theRussian Revolution was still bourgeois: itwould usher in an essentially bourgeoissystem, albeit a democratic one, becauseRussia was not ready for socialism. Kautskyproved this last point by applying two Marxistaxioms to Russia in 1906. The first axiom wasthat socialism was impossible without anappropriate level of productive forces:“Socialism can only be built on the basis oflarge-scale enterprises, and it stands too muchin contradiction to the conditions of small-scale enterprises for it to arise and maintainitself in a country with a overwhelmingpeasant majority.”

The second axiom might be called the axiomof the class ally: “It will be impossible for socialdemocracy to achieve victory solely based onthe proletariat, without the support of anotherclass, and therefore, as a victorious party, itcannot carry out its programme further thanpermitted by the interests of the class thatsupports the proletariat.” This supportive

class ally was the peasantry and, since thepeasants were not ready to support socialismand since, furthermore, the workers couldonly carry out socialist transformation in a fullydemocratic system, then it followed thatsocialism was not on the agenda in Russia in1906 or for the foreseeable future. “Themutuality of interest between the industrialproletariat and the peasantry is the source ofthe revolutionary strength of Russian socialdemocracy and of the possibility of itsvictory, but at the same time it is also the limitto the possible utilisation of that victory.”

L en i n s aw t he R us s i a n d e mo c r a t i crevolution as a grandiose historical task thatrequired heroic efforts from the proletariat andthe revolutionary narod. But he also acceptedwithout demur the argument that socialisttasks were out of the question for the timebeing. Kautsky’s words in 1906 only repeatwhat Lenin already said in 1905 when hepointed to “the existence of that immensepeasant and petty bourgeois population thatis capable of supporting the democraticrevolution, but is at present incapable ofsupporting the socialist revolution” (Lenin’sfamous comment from autumn 1905 that “wewill not stop halfway”, taken in context, is notevidence of any wavering on the issue ofsocialist transformation in Russia in theforeseeable future).

In his 1917 article, Kautsky took the same twoaxioms (forces of production, class ally) andapplied them to Russia in 1917 - and came upthis time with much more open-ended answers.Kautsky does not make definite predictions,but he warns against any automatic pessimism,against setting a priori limits to socialistdevelopment, given the new empirical realitiesof Russia in 1917. He thus opened the gatewayfor Lenin to come up with his own, moreassertively optimistic applications of the sameaxioms. In a word, he gave Lenin permissionto consider the possibility of steps towardsocialism in Russia.

We are now ready to turn to Kautsky’s articleand note the passages that Lenin might havefound to be significant. On two levels, Kautskyaffirms the key propositions of what might becalled the outlook of old Bolshevism. On theinternational level, he hints strongly that theRussian Revolution could lead to socialistrevolution in Europe. His language is somewhatguarded and Aesopian in order to get past thecensor, but the meaning is clear. He writes that“the international interdependence of state lifefor the peoples of Europe has already madetoo much progress for such a tremendousevent as the transformation of the tsaristempire into a democratic republic to occurwithout repercussions for the other states”.Among these repercussions is “a tremendousupswing in the political power of the workingclasses in the entire capitalist realm”. This iscoded language for ‘socialist revolution’.Kautsky also brings out the responsibility ofthe German SPD to prevent German militaristsfrom crushing the new revolution.

Kautsky then reaffirms the key propositionsof the long-standing Bolshevik analysis of thedomestic Russian situation. The Russianbourgeoisie would like to see tsarism removed,but it is so paralysed by fear of revolution that“tsarism had to first bring Russia to the brinkof the abyss before the bourgeoisie could

T he fall of the Russian tsar in March 1917electrified public opinion everywhere,including socialist circles. In April 1917,

Karl Kautsky published an article in his monthlyjournal Die Neue Zeit1 that assessed theprospects of the Russian Revolution and itspossible paths of development. Lenin readthe article just prior to leaving Switzerlandfor Russia.

We are here publishing a full translation of thisarticle, for two reasons. First, the immediatereaction to the Russian Revolution by the mostprominent Marxist of his generation cannot failto be of great historical interest. Kautsky hadalways been close to the Bolsheviks in hisgeneral assessment of revolutionary strategy inRussia, and his 1917 analysis of the Russiansituation overlaps with the Bolshevik one to alarge extent.

The second reason is that Kautsky’s articlemay provide an answer to a long-standinghistorical mystery. In April 1917, Lenin madecertain ideological innovations that seemed tocome out of the blue. Historians have proposedvarious explanations, but none have beengenerally convincing. I believe that the key tothe mystery lies in the impact of Kautsky’sarticle on Lenin’s outlook just at the crucial pointin time when he needed to come up with aconcrete political programme that could orientthe activities of the Bolshevik Party in the newcircumstances of 1917. I will outline the case forthis assertion here, leaving the necessary fullpresentation to another time.

First, what exactly was new in Lenin’sfamous April theses? The following planks inLenin’s 1917 platform are not new: all powerto the soviets, no support for the provisionalgovernment and the imperialist war, thenecessity of a second stage of the revolution,in which the proletariat would take state power.These themes can all be found earlier - inparticular, in theses published in October1915. What is new is Lenin’s insistence ontaking ‘steps toward socialism’ in Russia,prior to and independent o f soc ia l i s trevolution in western Europe. This themeoccurs for the first time in remarks jotted downin April 1917 - immediately after readingKautsky’s article. Of course, we cannotsimply argue post hoc, ergo propter hoc(“with this, therefore because of this”).Nevertheless, this coincidence in time opensup a possibility that should be seriouslyexamined.

A couple of preliminary remarks. The themeof ‘steps toward socialism’ is not equivalentto ‘socialism in one country’, as this sloganwas understood in the mid-20s. Lenin is notmaking any assertion about the possibilityof building full socialism in the absence ofan international revolution. The metaphorof ‘steps toward socialism’ was meant to bemodest: Russia can begin the long journeytoward socialist transformation. Leninundoubtedly still counted on Europeansocialist revolution as the only way out ofthe global crisis of imperialist war.

Some readers might feel that the idea ofKautsky influencing Lenin in any way,especially after 1914, is inherently implausible- even paradoxical. The standard story aboutLenin and Kautsky goes something like this:Lenin did indeed regard Kautsky as a Marxistauthority prior to 1914, although this was

SUPPLEMENT

January 14 2010 800workerweekly

ii

Prospects of theRussian Revolution

oppose it more energetically - obeyingnecessity, not their own inner drive”.

Thus the Russian Revolution was to be aproletarian one from the very beginning,and Kautsky lists all the reasons why theRussian workers could play this leadershiprole: the advanced class-consciousness ofthe Russian workers, the “20th centuryknowledge” of their leaders, the preponderantsocial weight of the cities and the “decisiverole” that the proletariat already enjoyedwithin them. Furthermore, the peasants werethe natural ally of the socialist workers, sinceonly the workers were prepared to satisfy thepeasant demand for land. Once the peasantsreceived the land, they will “oppose anycounterrevolution that threatens them with theloss of their newly won soil”. Furthermore, thepeasants were much more l ikely thanpreviously to support democratic politicalreforms on the state level. Kautsky’s 1917article thus contains a concise précis of oldBolshevik strategy.

But Kautsky goes on to open up newperspect ives. How far can the RussianRevolution go in a socialist direction, even priorto and independent of any European revolution?To answer this question, Kautsky applies thesame two Marxist axioms that he did in 1906, butcomes up with different results.

The f i rs t axiom s tates that social is ttransformation is possible only with theappropriate objective productive forces.Applying this axiom to Russia in 1917,Kautsky admits that “Russian capitalism [still]offers very little in terms of starting points[Ansatzpunkte] for socialist development”.Nevertheless, there is much that could bedone, including nationalisation of large firms,railroads and mines; extensive economicregulation to protect workers; progressivetaxation, and so on. But the significance ofKautsky’s remarks does not consist in his listof possible reforms, but rather the open-endedlogic of his scenario, as set forth in thefollowing crucial passage:

“One might call this a bourgeois programmeof reform and not a workers’ programme ofrevolution. Whether it is one or the other

depends on quantity. Here too, when quantityis increased accordingly, it must transforminto a new quality. It is in the nature of thingsthat the proletariat will strive to use itsrevolutionary power in the direction I haveoutlined here as soon as it feels solid groundunder its feet, and that in so doing it will meetthe resistance of the capitalists and the largelandowners. How much it will achievedepends on its relative power.”

The other axiom states that the proletariatcannot go further toward socialism than itsmain class ally - in this case, the peasantry. Thequestion becomes: will the peasantry supportthe socialist proletariat, not only when it iscarrying out democratic tasks, but when itmoves on to socialist tasks? There is no definiteanswer to this question (continues Kautsky).Certainly “we must reckon on the possibilitythat they will become a conservative elementas soon as their hunger for land is sated andtheir freedom of movement secured: enemiesof any counterrevolution, but also of anyfurther revolution”.

In 1906, this possibility was the only realisticone. But, as with socialist economic measures,Kautsky insists that we should now avoidtaking a too narrow and pessimistic view ofpeasant support. Already in 1906, Kautskywrote eloquently of the transformation of theRussian peasant “from a good-natured, sleepy,unreflective creature of habit into an energetic,restless and untiring fighter who strives towardsomething new and better”. In his 1917 article,Kautsky insists that the intervening decadehas seen such sweeping further changes inpeasant life that prediction of peasantbehaviour is impossible:

“If one is able to roughly, if not exactly,place the tendencies and needs of the otherc lasses in Russia in paral le l wi th thephenomena of western Europe, this way oflooking at the situation breaks down with theRussian peasant. His material circumstancesand historical traditions are quite unique, andat the same time have been in the processof colossal change for three decades. Thepeasant is the ‘x’, the unknown variable, in theequation of the Russian Revolution. We are

still unable to insert a figure for it. And yet weknow that this figure is the crucial one, thedecisive one. For this reason, the RussianRevolution can and will spring tremendoussurprises on us.”

Thus, for both fundamental questions,Kautsky refuses to set limits and tells us to beprepared for tremendous surprises. Over thecourse of 1917, Lenin proceeded to ask himselfthe same two questions and gradually came upwith his own definite answers. Just forillustrative purposes, we will limit ourselveshere to some striking verbal echoes thatindicate the direct impact of Kautsky’s article.Both come from Can the Bolsheviks retainstate power?, written in early October 1917.

For Lenin in 1917, the main Ansatzpunkt, orstarting point, for socialist development forRussia was the “economic apparatus” of thebanks and trusts. “This apparatus must not,and should not, be smashed.” In expanding onthis point, Lenin uses the same Hegelian tagas Kautsky did in a very similar context:

“The big banks are the ‘state apparatus’ whichwe need to bring about socialism, and which wetake ready-made from capitalism; our task hereis merely to lop off what capitalisticallymutilates this excellent apparatus, to make it evenbigger, even more democratic, even morecomprehensive. Quantity will be transformedinto quality. A single state bank, the biggest ofthe big, with branches in every rural district, inevery factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus.”

In another part of the same pamphlet, Leninresponds to the charge that the workers are“isolated from the petty bourgeoisie”: in otherwords, that they will not have mass support ifthey move against the bourgeoisie. He pointsto peasant revolts then taking place and assertsthat “it is difficult to imagine that in a capitalistcountry the proletariat should be so littleisolated from the petty bourgeoisie - and, markyou, in a revolution against the bourgeoisie -as the proletariat now is in Russia.”

In other words: Kautsky, we now have theanswer to your question. The peasants willsupport the workers in a revolution against thebourgeoisie. Full speed ahead!

N aturally, the first question that arose atthe outbreak of the revolution inRussia was how it would affect the

arrival of peace. We already dealt with this inan earlier article (‘The ice palace’ in No26 ofthe previous volume)2. But, just as theviolence of the current war goes far beyondthat of the Russo-Japanese war, the currentrevolution also promises to revolutionise theRussian empire far more than that of 1905.

If the revolution holds its ground, thenits effects will reach far beyond Russiaand will see the beginning of a new epochfor the whole of Europe. For, in spite ofall the nationalist fervour, the internationalinterdependence of state life for the peoplesof Europe has already made too muchprogress for such a tremendous event asthe transformation of the tsarist empireinto a democratic republic to occur withoutrepercussions for the other states.

If democracy holds its ground in Russia,then both the Austr ian and the Pol ishproblems immediately acquire new facets.The idea of Polish independence and thepreservation of Austria amongst the peoplesliving there drew their strength from the hatredand the fear instilled by the despotism ofneighbouring Russia. This idea changes whenit takes on the form of the united states ofeastern Europe. With this, the Balkan problembecomes quite a different one too.

Domestic politics in the whole of Europe willbe subject to even more profound change thanthe foreign politics of eastern Europe. The

Of course, these verbal echoes are hardlydirect proof that Kautsky’s article had a largeimpact on Lenin. Nevertheless, they addweight to the strong circumstantial case forseeing Kautsky’s article as the catalyst forLenin’s great innovations in his ideologicaloutlook. The innovations are not at the levelof the Marxist axioms themselves - Lenin aswell as Kautsky continued to take these forgranted. The innovations reveal themselves atthe level of the empirical application of theseaxioms to Russia.

Kautsky’s April article also foreshadows thelater clash between Lenin and himself. Kautskyinsists that socialism is impossible withoutdemocracy, by which he means politicalfreedoms such as right of assembly, of press,and so on. Of course, Lenin also emphasisedthe relation between democracy and socialism,but on a different plane. Lenin’s entireemphasis in 1917 is on mass participation inadministration rather than on politicalfreedoms. This emphasis stands in contrast toearlier old Bolshevism, for which politicalfreedom was a central goal.

Many other candidates have been proposedfor the catalyst for Lenin’s ideologicalinnovations in 1917. Among those put forwardare Hegel, Bukharin, the political writings ofMarx and Engels, JA Hobson and, of course,Trotsky, but there are difficulties with each ofthese. Some observers have dispensed withspecific catalysts and spoken either of Lenin’scynicism or of an existential ‘rejection ofBig Brother’. I have now put forth a newexplanation: the role of catalyst was played byKautsky’s article of April 1917, which showedLenin how he could both remain loyal to centralMarxist axioms and move forward to a socialistrevolution in Russia without waiting for theinternational revolution.

To the end of his life, Lenin continued to askthese two questions: ‘What are the startingpoints for socialist development in Russia?’;and ‘Will the peasants follow the workers evenwhen the workers move toward socialism?’ Henever did find answers that completelysatisfied him l

Lars T Lih

necessary consequence of this is a tremendousupswing in the political power of the workingclasses in the entire capitalist realm.

But, of course, this all presupposes that therevolution holds its ground and does notsuccumb to a counterrevolution. The fate ofthe 1905 revolution, as well as that of 1848,elicits anxious doubt in some. Those of us notadhering to this perspective need to be clearabout the prospects of the revolution.

Because it broke out in the middle of the war,the prospects of the revolution are first of alldependent on how the war continues andconcludes, and not least on the individualwarring powers’ stance on the revolution andwhether they show themselves inclined tomake an agreement with the revolution orto combat it. A military catastrophe for theRussian commonwealth could also become acatastrophe for the revolution. In this respectits prospects depend on the attitude of thewarring states’ governments, but also on theirsocial democratic parties - above all on thatof the German party.

But is the revolution not already condemnedto fail from the outset due to Russia’s economicbackwardness?

In an article about the revolution on March18, Vorwärts3 asked the question, “Has theRussian people’s situation improved throughthe revolution?” and it gave the followinganswer: “Time will tell! For the time being ithas merely exchanged the rule of absolutismfor that of the bourgeoisie!” One could justas well say, ‘What did the French people

achieve in their great revolution?’ Back thenthey merely “exchanged the rule of absolutismfor that of the bourgeoisie”.

First of all, it is vulgar to compare the reignof absolutism with that of the bourgeoisie.Absolutism is a form of government. Thebourgeoisie is a class which can rule under themost diverse forms of government. If we donot draw a nonsensical comparison betweenthe existence of a form of government and thereign of a class, but if we instead comparedifferent forms of government, then we arriveat this result: the Russian people haveexchanged absolutism for democracy. Doessuch an exchange deserve the predicate“merely”? In the same article, Vorwärts evenunderlines how “we need democracy!”

Nor is it correct to say that “for the timebeing” we have the “rule of the bourgeoisie”in Russia. Rather, the bourgeoisie has taken afairly helpless attitude toward the events bywhich it is being carried away. But this is, ofcourse, a situation that cannot last for long.The consolidation of the new state formation’sconditions is closely related to answering thefollowing question: the rule of the proletariator the rule of the bourgeoisie?

There is no bourgeois revolution which wouldhave taken place without the active participationof the proletariat. But in the first bourgeoisrevolutions from 1642 to 1848, the mass of theproletariat joined the revolutionary strugglewithout pronounced class-consciousness. Onlyin the course of revolutionary development -only after years in the first English revolution

and the great French revolution, and then onlyto a limited extent - did the proletariat begin tosee its specific interests and gain specificunderstanding of state and society, as opposedto that of the bourgeoisie.

But, in comparison to previous bourgeoisrevolutions, the proletariat has now developeda sharply pronounced class-consciousness,and this has not been restricted to the mosteconomically developed countries: it hasalso spread to the economically backwardcountries, just so long as they have attained amodern capitalism and a modern proletariat.The urban workers in Russia possess a strongclass-consciousness, and their socialist leadersare armed with 20th century knowledge.

But this indicates that they join therevolution in strong opposition from theoutset to any bourgeois rule; they do notdevelop this opposition only after therevolution is in progress.

At the same time, the hitherto existing formof government in Russia was such that it didnot merely hugely inhibit proletariandevelopment: equally it inhibited bourgeoisdevelopment and led the state to ruin.Overthrowing absolutism was also urgentlynecessary for the bourgeoisie, but the violentoverthrow of absolutism was not possiblewithout the participation of the proletariat,which under the given circumstances instilledextreme fear in the bourgeoisie. Thebourgeoisie thus offered the absolutist regimeonly the weakest opposition; tsarism had tofirst bring Russia to the brink of the abyss

workerweekly

800 January 14 2010 iii

socialism, not only insofar as it creates thematerial conditions for it, but also in that itcreates the people who have an interest inbringing it into being: the proletariat.

Now, numerically speaking, the urbanindustrial proletariat in Russia is certainly stillquite small. This can be elucidated from thenegligibility of the urban population. In 1913,almost 150 million of the Russian empire’s 174million people lived in the country and onlysomething over 24 million in the towns.

That said, precisely because of the state’sbackwardness, the lack of communicationsand the great intellectual isolation of the rural

currently holds.Whether democracy will be upheld at all also

depends on them.

DemocracyFor the moment, democracy is still moreimportant than the proletariat’s economicelevation. No doubt it would soon helplesslyhover in the air, were it not to quickly find themeans to considerably improve the situationof the working masses, but this momentaryoutcome is not its most important one. Rather,this consists in democracy providing thebasis for the possibility of the proletariat’s

Whatever the new Russian state formationmay currently offer the proletariat in materialachievements and positions of power, thisq u e s t i o n t a k e s s e c o n d p l a c e t o t h esignificance of holding onto democracy. Thisis by far the most important aspect of today’sRussian Revolution. The most energeticbattles will be fought over this issue. We haveto anticipate attempts at a counterrevolution.What are its prospects?

The lessons of revolutionWe have to take into consideration that therevolution Russia is going through is thesecond within just a few years. But revolutionsare strict masters. Every people coming intocontact with them learns a tremendous amount;not just the ruled and exploited classes, but alsothe ruling classes.

The extraordinary political cunningness ofthe classes governing England is well known:their attentive study of the needs and demandsof the working people; their ability, whilststubbornly holding onto privileges andproperty they have gained throughexploitation, to actually recognise when one ofthese can no longer be sustained, and to thensacrifice these or part of them in order tosalvage their rule and exploitation as a whole.Thanks to these cunning politics, England’spolitical development in the 19th century hasbeen much more constant than on thecontinent. This cannot be ascribed either toracial characteristics or the higher intelligenceof the English, but to the fact that - as a resultof the attempt to violently suppress the people- it went through three revolutions earlier thanothers did in the capitalist epoch. The leastthoroughgoing was the second of them: theremoval of James II in the ‘glorious revolution’,which appeared ‘glorious’ to bourgeoisthought precisely because it did not emanatefrom the mass of the people, but from a factionof the ruling classes. The two great popularuprisings - those of 1642-48 which led to theexecution of Charles I in 1649 - were of a quitedifferent nature, as were those revolutions inBritain’s colonies in America, which began in1774 and ended in 1783 with the recognition oftheir independence.

The English republic of the 17th and theAmerican republic of the 18th century had aprofound influence on the whole of the Englishpeople. They raised the confidence ofEngland’s subordinate classes as much as theytaught the upper classes foresight and cautionin opposing them.

For the second time in 12 years, Russia isnow being taught the same lessons. They willdefinitely have an impact on Russia’s upper aswell as its lower classes similar to the impact ofthe English revolution on the English, and inthis way these lessons have already raised astrong barrier against a counterrevolution.

The armyOf course, this barrier cannot yet said to beinsurmountable. The French ruling classesrepeatedly received these same lessons since1789, and yet that did not prevent a counter-revolution. This stems from the significancethat the army had achieved there.

The strong and early imprints of the Eng-lish revolutions alone would not have been suf-ficient to instil enough concern in the Englishruling class to dismiss any attempt of a violentsuppression of a strong popular movement if,on top of this, they had not also been lackinga large standing army.

After its revolution England one-sidedly de-veloped its naval power, and the other Euro-pean peoples put up with this because Englandwas lacking any significant land power whichcould have been threatening to them on thecontinent. But a fleet can only be dangerousabroad, not at home.

On the other hand, the other great powersprimarily developed their armies, and in sodoing they created a means of building up theirpower not only abroad, but also at home -against their own people. Through this - aslong as they were sure that the army wouldobey their command just as blindly as home asthey did abroad - the governments of thecontinental powers were as good as invinciblein the face of the rise of democracy. On theother hand, through this the government’sposition in the face of a popular uprisingbecomes untenable as soon as the militarybecomes unreliable or even goes over to theside of the masses. From the storming of theBastille to the Paris Commune, the Frenchpeople are victorious when the army vacillates.

before the bourgeoisie would oppose it moreenergetically - obeying necessity, not theirown inner drive. But all the more was therevolution that eventually broke out aproletarian one from the very beginning.

Will it be able to maintain this character in theface of the empire’s economic backwardness?And does a victory of bourgeois forces haveto undo everything that the revolution hasachieved?

These are the questions forcing themselveson us. Here, of course, we cannot prophesiseor say with certainty whether the revolution willhold its ground or not. We can say nothing onthis. But from the data available to us we canperhaps draw some conclusions in answeringthe question of whether the revolution iscondemned to fail from the outset.

SocialismAbove all we must be clear about the tasks thatarise for a revolutionary proletarian regime.

There are two things that the proletariaturgently needs: democracy and socialism.Democracy means extensive freedoms andpolitical rights for the mass of the people andtransforming the institutions of state andmunicipal administration into mere tools ofthe people. And then socialism, which meanstransforming private production for the marketinto social - ie, state, municipal or cooperative- production for the needs of society. Bothrequire the proletariat in equal measure. Socialproduction without democracy could becomeone of the most onerous shackles. Democracywithout socialism does nothing to abate theproletariat’s economic dependency.

Of the two great demands of the proletariat- the demand for democracy is not specific toit alone. Other classes can represent it too. Yettoday it is, of course, the only class which -as the lowest of all classes - demands (and hasto demand) it with the greatest energy in allcircumstances and to the greatest extent.

On the other hand, the demand of socialismis its specific demand. All other classes’ pointsof view are based on private production. Forthem, socialised factories are at most isolatedimplements of private production, not a generalway of overcoming it.

The two demands also differ in that democracycan be attained with a single blow and can berealised where the mass of people has gainedpolitical interest - thus, everywhere where themass of the people is demanding it - whereassocialism can never be attained at once and theextent that it can be realised is dependent on thelevel of capitalist development.

There can be no doubt that, as of yet,Russian capitalism offers very little in termsof starting points for socialist development.However, considerable steps could be takenin this spirit through the nationalisation of:large firms; railways - to the extent that theyare not already (excluding Finland, theRussian empire’s railways total more than74,000 kilometres, and of that 54,000 kilometresare state-owned); the mines, above all themining of coal, gold and oil; as well as largeindividual firms in heavy industry. Further,through state confiscation of the goods of thedethroned dynasty and the monasteries,through state acquisition of large landholdings and finally through giving overproperty to the towns - both to build cheaperand healthier housing and to produce food fortheir inhabitants.

For the time being, the main thing will haveto be maintaining workers’ interests in privateproduction: extensive measures to protect theworkers. Especially important amongst theseis unemployment benefit and the provision ofcheap food. Finally, the costs that fall to thestate from these and other causes should becovered exclusively by progressive taxationon the property-owning classes.

One might call that a bourgeois programmeof reform and not a workers’ programme ofrevolution. Whether it is one or the otherdepends on quantity. Here too, when quantityis increased accordingly, it must transforminto a new quality.

I t i s in the nature of things that theproletariat will strive to use its revolutionarypower in the direction I have outlined hereas soon as it feels solid ground under its feet,and that in so doing it will meet the resistanceof the capitalists and the large landowners.How much it achieves will depend on itsrelative power.

Russia’s economic backwardness will alsomanifest itself in the extent of proletarianpower. Capitalism forms the preconditions of

population, the political weight of the latter,as compared with the urban population, isless than suggested by the quantitativerelationship. This disparity can be observedin all states, but it is greater in undevelopedones than it is in advanced ones. Today, Parisdoes not at all mean what it meant to France ahundred years ago. The political significanceof Constantinople to Turkey is much greaterthan that of Berlin to Germany.

It is, however, in Russia’s towns, especiallythe large ones, that the proletariat is todayalready playing a decisive role.

Indeed, the numerical predominance of therural population is too great. They willdecide whether and to what extent theproletariat will maintain the strong position it

permanent ascent.Democracy is significant in this not merely

in that it enables the proletariat to winpositions of power. Although offering them noimmediately obvious advantages in terms ofRealpolitik, it is invaluable to the proletariat.

In order to liberate themselves, the workersnot only need certain material preconditionsat their disposal and to be numerically strong;they also have to become new people, enduedwith the abilities that are required for thereorganisation of state and society. They onlyattain these abilities through class struggle,which requi res democra t ic r igh ts andfreedoms if it is to be carried out by the massesruling themselves and not conducted bysecret committees.

January 14 2010 800workerweekly

iv

SUPPLEMENTThe counterrevolution is victorious when thegovernment is sure of its troops.

The same is true of Russia. Together withthe high tide of mass strikes, the dissolutionof Russia’s armies following the defeats ofManchuria in 1905 saw the victory of therevolution. The counterrevolution set in assoon as the government had reliable troopsin its grip.

Will it go that way this time too? Will thecounterrevolutionary cliques once againsucceed in winning over the army anddefeating the revolution with its support?That is the vital question of this revolution.Fortunately, the situation is quite different to1905. Although back then the revolutionariesmanaged to force the Tsar to climb down onthe question of the constitution, they did notoverthrow his regime. Thus, command overthe army remained in his hands, and he coulduse it to concentrate the reliable elements ofthe army on the areas that were threateninghis rule.

This time around, the revolutionaries haveconquered executive power and preside overthe army. Now a counterrevolution would atfirst not mean the government crushing thepeople, but the army leaders overthrowing thegovernment in a coup d’etat: what NapoleonI carried out on the 18th Brumaire. Were thewar to continue and be enthusiasticallyfought by the army, then the situation couldbecome favourable for a coup. This assumesthat Russia’s enemies would threaten todestroy its newly won freedom. Through thisthe army would, of course, be forged into astrong and united will.

Yet even this need not yet make the army intothe tool of a Napoleon. Above all, where is thisNapoleon to come from? The epoch of fairy-talewars of suppression [Niederschlagungskriege]is over, not least that of the great advantagesthat have hitherto accrued to officers and eventhe common man from the spoils of victory.

The mentality of soldiers created bytoday’s warfare is quite different to that of theNapoleonic armies, and for this reasonRussia’s armies will not lightly grant a generalthe overwhelming power necessary for him tocarry out a coup.

We cannot forget, by the way, that even thepowerful Napoleon never dared to lose sightof the revolutionary character of his army. Hecould make it subservient to his purposes bybeing the bearer of the revolution anddestroying feudal, monarchical Europe. Sousing the army for counterrevolutionarypurposes in Russia today is not as simple asit may first appear.

But what if one day the revolutionarygovernment (which is predominantly in the gripof the bourgeoisie) were to become wary ofproletarian influence and itself seek to get ridof it with the army’s assistance? In June 1848 itwas the revolutionary government itself thatmobilised the army against the proletariat inParis. This can certainly happen again.

But two things have to be borne in mindhere. Firstly, due to the millions of new recruitsit has rushed in, the Russian army in this waris much more of a people’s army and much lessof a standing army than that of the Frenchconscription army in 1848 with its long termsof service. And also the classes of thepopulation which the French army wasrecruiting from were not indifferent to whatwas happening. This is even truer of today’sRussian army.

Here as elsewhere, however, we find that theclass of the population which is decisive inthe army is the peasantry. To this day, thepeasantry is more strongly represented in thearmy than it is in the population. The peasantis considered to be the best soldier, the coreof the army. When the peasantry makes up thelarge majority of the population, it completelydetermines the character of the army.

The peasantsIndeed, the mood of the common manruns parallel with that of the peasantryin the revolut ionary epochs o f bothFrance and Russia.

Here we come to the third factor which hashitherto forced the English ruling classes toadopt more intelligent tactics towards themasses – tactics which have been less gearedtowards violent suppression than on thecontinent. For centuries in England a greatcounterweight in the face of the industrialproletariat - the peasants - has been lacking.It was the peasants who sealed the fate of thecontinental revolutions.

As long as feudal conditions predominate,the peasant has a tendency to identify withthe urban democracy of the petty bourgeoisieand the proletariat. In this it is economicreasons that are decisive for him. He wishesto get rid of feudal burden and to takepossession of feudal landed property. Inorder to achieve this he allies himself with thedemocrats of the cities - and has done sofrom the time of the great peasants’ war tothe great revolution.

On the other hand, modern democracy -which wishes to subordinate the governmentof the whole state to the people - is notinitially so close to his heart. For a long timethe illiterate, economically self-sufficientpeasants of the individual villages anddistricts - devoid of constant communicationwith the big wide world and of an interest in orunderstanding of politics - placed li ttleemphasis on state democracy. Local democracywas sufficient for parish politics.

In the French revolution the peasantsjoined with the revolutionaries of the citiesin the struggle against the feudal lords andtheir paladins to reclaim the goods of thechurch and the émigrés. On the other hand,they left the struggle for state democracyalmost completely to the cities. They formeda rampart against the counterrevolution,insofar as it threatened a restoration of feudalconditions. On the other hand, they leftrepublican freedom in the lurch. Napoleonwas their man. He protected the economicgains of the revolution and spurned itsdemocratic gains in equal measure.

The peasant proved to be an energeticchampion of the economic revolution, anda half-hearted friend of the democraticrevolution. At this time, a third factor hadalready come to l ight . Where pol it icsexercised the decisive influence on the priceof foodstuffs, the peasant immediatelyshowed the beginnings of direct hostility tothe cities.

In general, this issue was not a prominentone in the times of the great revolution or fora few decades thereafter. The peasant’sfarming was for the large part based on hisown consumption. He did not buy much andthus did not need to sell much if his taxes werelow. Low taxes were more important to thepeasant than the price of food. But whenrelations set in where the price of foodacquires significance for him, and when at thesame time politics become a means ofreducing this price, a trenchant politicalcontradiction looms between the cities andthe peasants.

This became evident in 1793, when Francewas harried on all sides by enemy armies andcut off from foreign supplies. Democracy inthe cities felt pressed into a policy of fixedprices, which the peasants revolted against,causing a cleavage in the unity of therevolutionary forces.

Back then this was a temporary affair,which disappeared with the superiority of theenemy armies. But, ever since, commodityproduction has developed quickly. Thepeasant produced less and less for his ownconsumption and increasingly for the market.If, simultaneously, industry developed tosuch an extent that food production in thecountry no longer sufficed to cover theindustria l populat ion’s needs, then thepricing of food on the home market becamegreatly dependent on the type of trade policy.A great contradiction between the peasantryand democracy in the city emerged in thestruggle around this policy, a contradictionthat is now constant.

It is an anachronism if under suchconditions a social democratic party stillseeks to renew an alliance between theproletariat and the peasantry inherited frompast revolutionary times, and creates anagrarian programme for this purpose. Instates where development has blossomed asmuch as specified here, the strength of theproletariat does not lie in an association withthe peasantry, but in its own superiornumbers. In the country it draws its strengthfrom the fact that the class separationbetween the propertied and the propertylesssets in there too, even if in many cases thisseparation is weaker than in the cities. Incountries that are as economically advancedas these, the fate of democracy no longerdepends on the peasantry. This is quitedifferent in a country like Russia. Here, thepeasantry is the decisive factor. Nobody canyet say what the final outcome of this factor

will be, because in the last decade theRussian peasant has gone through a greatprocess of transformation, the effects ofwhich are not yet known.

The modern Russian peasantUntil the revolution of 1905 the Russianpeasant’s situation had much in common withthe French peasant of 1789. Although theRussian peasant was rid of serfdom, he enteredthe realm of freedom in such poverty andignorance that he was incapable of rational,intensive agriculture. His farm degenerated moreand more, whilst his average land sharedecreased due to the quickly growingpopulation. His most urgent need had becomeland - more land.

As long as illiteracy and insufficientcommunication made state power appear to himas something unachievable and intangible, hewas less moved by democracy on the state level.The typical thinking was: ‘Heaven is high, thetsar far away’.

Just as with the storming of the Bastille in 1789,when in 1905 the urban proletarians forcedtsarism to its knees, this was the signal forrevolutionary uprisings by the peasants, whodemanded the property of the nobility and thechurch, and who recognised that they had tosupport the urban proletariat. But the isolationof the peasants was still too great for them torise up as one all over the country. Just like inthe peasants’ war of 1525 in Germany, thepeasant movement got bogged down anddissipated into local, incoherent upheavals,which were partly violently suppressed one afterthe other by troops who had remained loyal,and partly pacified by cunning promises. Thusthe proletarian uprising in the cities was deprivedof necessary support. It was defeated.

Yet for the nobility and absolutism the threatposed had been a terrible one. They understoodthe warning. On the one hand, they sought toprovide a safe outlet for the peasant’s hunger forland by promoting emigration to Siberia, and, onthe other, they sought to render it meaninglessby giving the peasants the opportunity to switchto intensive farming. To this end they employedmethods such as the abolition of the remnants ofvillage communism and promoted the immensecleavage of the rural population between thewealthy and the propertyless.

Absolutism hoped to use this in order tocreate a reactionary guard amongst the wealthypart of the population, or at least to paralysethe revolutionary tendencies of the ruralpopulation. The ascendance of this wealthylayer and the intensification of peasant farmingwere made easier by something absolutismcould neither bring about nor foresee: theincrease in the price of corn on the worldmarket, which came about precisely after thefirst Russian Revolution of 1905.

At the moment we cannot foresee how thesechanges have penetrated and influenced thegoals and thinking of the Russian peasantry. Butwe can be sure that they will not satisfy thepeasant’s hunger for land. They could onlyincrease that of the proletarianised peasants.Whilst the wealthy peasant’s hunger for land isnot strong enough to drive him to revolution, itis strong enough to make exploiting an alreadycompleted revolution for this purpose appearattractive to him.

But if the peasants are granted land by therevolution, then this chains them to it and thusthey will oppose any counterrevolution thatthreatens them with the loss of their newly wonsoil. Here is another point where the peasantsfind their closest allies in the socialists. Theliberals (who have so many landowners in theirranks) will not very willingly satisfy the peasant’shunger for land - let alone the conservatives.

The peasants will no doubt support democracyat the state level with less intensity. Yet even herewe should not look at things in too bleak afashion. The spread of popular education and ofthe means of communication, of journalism andthe mail system, is making progress everywhereand awakening the peasantry’s interest inpolitics. Army conscription draws many into thetown, and using the vote further animates itsinterest in politics.

The peasantry is still not so advanced in anyEuropean country as to seize the politicalinitiative, but its interest in and understandingof political questions is expanding everywhere.And this means that the peasantry’s interestin democratic rights and freedoms is growing -not just at the parish level, but at the state level- because they give it the possibility ofthrowing a weight onto the scale appropriateto its numbers.

All this leads us to expect that the peasantswill remain faithful to the revolution in so far asit brings them economic advantages, and thatequally they will not abandon democraticachievements, even if they should not beexpected to champion these as enthusiasticallyand unanimously as the proletariat. The youngrepublic’s army will also be recruited from thepeasantry and formed into the republic’sprotective barrier. In this sense the revolutionhas better prospects of stability than the Frenchrepublics of 1792 and 1848.

But if we expect the new revolutionary regimeto be well protected against a counterrevolution,the peasants to join it and remain faithful to it,then this by itself says nothing about how theywill behave when it comes to a conflict withinthe regime between the bourgeois andproletarian elements. These are two quitedifferent questions. A defeat of the proletariatdoes not yet need to mean the downfall of therepublican form of government, as the historyof post-1871 France shows us. On the otherhand, the peasantry’s dependence on therevolution does not mean that they will supporta further revolutionary advance of theproletariat. We must reckon on the possibilitythat they will become a conservative element assoon as their hunger for land is satisfied and theirfreedom of movement secured: enemies of anycounterrevolution, but also of any furtherrevolution.

The jagged cont radict ion which hasdeveloped in western Europe in the course ofthe last few decades between agriculture andtown, and between peasants and proletarians,will not need to come about in Russia, as it isone of the food-exporting countries. Its pricesdepend on the world market, are not determinedby the domestic market and, as such, are for themost part independent of domestic policy.Therefore this stands out as the cause of acontradiction between the peasants and theproletarians. At least in normal times.

Now, during the war, Russia has ceased to bea food-exporting country. The domestic marketis the decisive factor in determining prices - infact it is the only one. All ties to the world markethave been cut. All relations with the world marketturned off. This made the struggle for foodprices a political question, and one whichappears in the most direct and acrimonious formas a struggle for and against fixed prices,something which deeply stirs the workingmasses of town and country and which iscapable of splitting them apart. This can resultin a vicious conflict between the proletariat andthe peasantry. But it can only be a momentaryone. In times of peace this contradiction - whichhas been so influential in Russia - loses itsmaterial basis.

If one is able to roughly, if not exactly, placethe tendencies and needs of the other classesin Russia in parallel with the same phenomenain western Europe, this way of looking at thesituation breaks down with the Russian peasant.His material circumstances and historicaltraditions are quite unique, and at the same timehave been in the process of colossal change forthree decades.

The peasant is the ‘x’, the unknown variable,in the equation of the Russian Revolution. Weare still unable to insert a figure for it. And yetwe know that this figure is the crucial one, thedecisive one. For this reason, the RussianRevolution can and will spring tremendoussurprises on us.

But, just as in summer’s struggle with winter,storms might thunder over our country withoutus having to fear that the streams could freezeover again, we may in spite of all possiblevicissitudes confidently expect that the Russianpeople will henceforth know how to permanentlyfend off absolutism.

Come what may, we hope that the essentialrights and freedoms of democracy - and withthem the most secure basis for mass proletarianmobilisation and advance to the conquering ofpolitical power - are at least as well establishedin eastern Europe as they are in the west l

Karl Kautsky

Notes1.Die Neue Zeit (New Times) was a monthly magazine ofGerman Social Democracy published between 1883 and1923. Kautsky, who edited the magazine from its inception,handed over its editorship to the rightist Heinrich Cunow inOctober 1917. It was a hugely influential journal, whichpublished key texts such as Marx’s Critique of the Gothaprogramme and Engels’s ‘Criticism of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891’.2. ‘Der Eispalast’ in Die Neue Zeit, March 19173. Vorwärts (Forward) was the central organ of the GermanSocial Democratic Party published daily in Berlin from 1891until 1933.