Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl Kantsky — John Shaqi
Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl KantskyTrotsky, Leon
Philosophy
Dictatorship vs. Democracy (Terrorism and Communism): a reply to Karl Kantsky
Trotsky, Leon
Communism -- Russia; Kautsky, Karl, 1854-1938. Terrorismus und Kommunismus; Revolutions
In Great Britain, events, different in form, are moving along the
self-same fundamental road. In that country, the ruling class of which
is oppressing and plundering the whole world more than ever before,
the formulae of democracy have lost their meaning even as weapons of
parliamentary swindling. The specialist best qualified in this sphere,
Lloyd George, appeals now not to democracy, but to a union of
Conservative and Liberal property holders against the working class.
In his arguments there remains not a trace of the vague democracy of
the "Marxist" Kautsky. Lloyd George stands on the ground of class
realities, and for this very reason speaks in the language of civil
war. The British working class, with that ponderous learning by
experience which is its distinguishing feature, is approaching that
stage of its struggle before which the most heroic pages of Chartism
will fade, just as the Paris Commune will grow pale before the coming
victorious revolt of the French proletariat.
Precisely because historical events have, with stern energy, been
developing in these last months their revolutionary logic, the author
of this present work asks himself: Does it still require to be
published? Is it still necessary to confute Kautsky theoretically? Is
there still theoretical necessity to justify revolutionary terrorism?
Unfortunately, yes. Ideology, by its very essence, plays in the
Socialist movement an enormous part. Even for practical England the
period has arrived when the working class must exhibit an
ever-increasing demand for a theoretical statement of its experiences
and its problems. On the other hand, even the proletarian psychology
includes in itself a terrible inertia of conservatism--the more that,
in the present case, there is a question of nothing less than the
traditional ideology of the parties of the Second International which
first roused the proletariat, and recently were so powerful. After the
collapse of official social-patriotism (Scheidemann, Victor Adler,
Renaudel, Vandervelde, Henderson, Plekhanov, etc.), international
Kautskianism (the staff of the German Independents, Friedrich Adler,
Longuet, a considerable section of the Italians, the British
Independent Labor Party, the Martov group, etc.) has become the chief
political factor on which the unstable equilibrium of capitalist
society depends. It may be said that the will of the working masses of
the whole of the civilized world, directly influenced by the course of
events, is at the present moment incomparably more revolutionary than
their consciousness, which is still dominated by the prejudices of
parliamentarism and compromise. The struggle for the dictatorship of
the working class means, at the present moment, an embittered struggle
with Kautskianism within the working class. The lies and prejudices of
the policy of compromise, still poisoning the atmosphere even in
parties tending towards the Third International, must be thrown aside.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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