Originally published at Firebrand.

I’d like to begin with an anecdotetold by John Kautsky – grandson of Karl – from the 1960s. He recalled ahistorian named Georges Haupt who had many discussions among students about thehistory of the Second International. During those talks, the students alwaysreferred to the “Renegade Kautsky.” It suddenly hit him that they thought“Renegade” was Kautsky’s first name. In the decades after his death, this storyaccurately reflects how far Karl Kautsky had fallen into oblivion that even hisfirst name was forgotten. Instead, Kautsky was known by the pejorative monikergiven to him by Lenin in his polemic, The Proletarian Revolution and theRenegade Kautsky.

This was in marked contrast to Kautsky’s reputation in the early 20thcentury when he was the leading theoretician in the German Social DemocraticParty (SPD) and the Second International. So great was Kautsky’s authority thathe was known as the “Pope of Marxism.” Marxists ranging from Leon Trotsky, RosaLuxemburg, August Bebel, Eugene Debs, and V. I. Lenin viewed him as the main interpreterof scientific socialism. Yet at his death, Kautsky was largely ignored and reviledby the revolutionary left. So how did this happen? And why has there been aconscious effort to revive his political ideas by figures such as Lars Lih andEric Blanc? Why should communists care why Kautsky was wrong?

Karl Kautsky

To answer these questions, it is necessary to understand Karl Kautsky’s lifeand his main political ideas. Born in 1854 to a Czech-German family in Prague,Kautsky was radicalized during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. Followingthe Paris Commune of 1871, he identified himself with the forces of socialism.In the 1870s, Kautsky was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria(SPÖ) and later with the German SPD.

From the period of 1878-1890, theGerman SPD was illegal due to Bismarck’s Anti-Socialist Legislation. The SPDhad a number of members abroad such as Kautsky who helped keep the party alive.Kautsky lived in Switzerland where he edited the paper Sozialdemokrat,the main theoretical journal for the SPD. Underground party activists risked agreat deal smuggling the paper back into the Reich. In 1883, Kautsky alsoformed the paper, Die Neue Zeit which soon became the premier socialistjournal in the world. Kautsky’s reputation as a socialist theoretician wasfurther solidified with The Economic Doctrines of Karl Marx (1887),which acted as an accessible guide to Marx’s Capital. This work wastranslated into multiple languages and became a popular introduction to Marxfor a whole generation.

After the SPD was legalized, theyadopted a new political program in 1891 known as the Erfurt Program. So greatwas Kautsky’s prestige that he (along with Eduard Bernstein) was entrusted withwriting the program. In the Erfurt Program, Kautsky said that the iron laws ofhistory condemned capitalism. From the ruins of bourgeois society, theproletariat must lead humanity to a socialist future. To reach socialism, itwas necessary to fuse Marxist theory with the working-class movement. Toaccomplish this merger between scientific socialism and the working class wasthe task of the SPD.

While the Erfurt Program championed the socialist cause, it also showcased theunderlying problems of Kautsky’s Marxism. First, his view of socialistrevolution was dictated by his Positivist and anti-dialectical evolutionaryworldview. Based on this schema, Kautsky saw revolutions as strictly objectivephenomena that socialists should patiently wait for rather than activelyorganize. This led Kautsky to believe that revolutionary activity by theworking class was unnecessary to reach socialism. Since capitalism wasinevitably fated to transform into socialism, Kautsky advocated a gradualiststrategy to build-up social democracy through parliamentary means. As a result,he viewed extra-parliamentary activity as dangerous forms of Blanquism and“ultra-leftism.”

Kautsky’s emphasis on the primacyof parliamentary struggle implied a certain viewpoint on the state. Earlier inthe 1880s, he had argued that there was no parliamentary path to socialism andthat the revolution would require armed force. By now, his own views onparliament had changed. He saw parliament as a neutral institution that couldbe used by both the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. In practice, this meant herejected the necessity for smashing the bourgeois state.

In the Erfurt Program, Kautsky codified the main tenets of the SPD’s Marxism.In addition, he seemingly reconciled the opposed camps of reform andrevolution. On the one hand, the party’s adherence to socialism showed that itwas marching with the forces of history. On the other hand, the day-to-dayadvocacy of reforms and parliamentarism allowed the SPD to steadily accumulateforces while patiently waiting for history to go its way. If party members wereable to live with this divorce between theory and practice, then Kautsky’ssolution would work. Yet when the time arrived to give clear answers torevolutionary questions, Kautsky found himself unable to do so. 

For the time being, Kautsky wasseen by both his friends and opponents as a stalwart orthodox Marxist. Duringdebates over the agrarian question, Kautsky defended the party program againstattempts to dilute the proletarian character of the party by making concessionsto petty-bourgeois interests. In the Millerand Affair – when a French socialistjoined a bourgeois cabinet – Kautsky was a major voice rejecting all socialistparticipation in bourgeois governments. Although at first, he argued thatsocialist participation might be deemed permissible in “exceptionalcircumstances.”

The first major challenge toKautsky’s orthodoxy occurred in 1898 with the revisionist controversy. EduardBernstein, a leading party theoretician, argued that it was necessary for theSPD to “revise” its program by dropping Marxism, proletarian revolution, andthe class struggle. Instead, the SPD should become what it already was inpractice, a party of social reform. In the ensuing debate with Bernstein,Kautsky stood with anti-revisionists such as Rosa Luxemburg, Georgi Plekhanov,and Alexander Parvus.

Even though Kautsky came out indefense of Marxist orthodoxy, he conceded a great deal to Bernstein in thedebates. For one, he did not defend the monistic character of dialecticalmaterialism and was agnostic on philosophical questions. Secondly, he did notthink capitalism was fated to break down. Thirdly, even though he defended thedictatorship of the proletariat, Kautsky said that it was not an immediateconcern for the SPD. Nor did his conception of revolution call for smashing thebourgeois state and its replacement with a semi-state on the Paris Communemodel.

Finally, Kautsky drew no organizational conclusions from the revisionistcontroversy. Like the revisionists, Kautsky believed that party unity wassomething to be maintained at all costs. He considered it an article of faiththat the unity of social democracy was identical with the unity of the workingclass. For Kautsky, the SPD was the party of the whole working class – not inthe sense of recruiting all workers into the party – but that all tendencieswhich regarded themselves as socialists should be members of the same party.The SPD believed expulsions would endanger the unity of the working class. Thismeant that the expulsion of Bernstein and other revisionists was rejected bythe SPD and Kautsky. Since no organizational conclusions were drawn from therevisionist controversy, this allowed reformist forces to remain inside theparty.

Seemingly the forces of Marxist orthodoxy emerged triumphant over therevisionists at various party congresses. Yet nothing fundamentally changed inthe SPD, which remained reformist in its day-to-day practice. Over the comingyears, Kautsky’s gradualism and identification with the SPD apparatus becamemore overt.

In 1905-06, there was an upsurge ofthe class struggle in Germany and many cadres such as Rosa Luxemburg debatedemploying the mass strike. However, the SPD shrank from using the mass strike sinceit conflicted with their gradualist strategy. In addition, the unions were moreconcerned with protecting their apparatus and winning bread-and-butter gainsthan advancing a revolutionary strategy. Rhetorically the party passedresolutions favoring mass strikes, but with so many stipulations that they provedto be empty. Kautsky was aware of the SPD’s bureaucratization, but he viewedleftist-sounding resolutions as a genuine commitment to the mass strike andrevolution.

In 1910, the debate on the massstrike flared up again. During a campaign against Germany’s restrictiveelection system, Rosa Luxemburg advocated mass strikes and raising the demandfor a republic. Like the SPD, Kautsky feared a confrontation with the Kaiser.Instead, he advocated the “strategy of attrition” that would avoid mass strikesby building up the forces of the SPD. This was simply parliamentarism byanother name. By 1912, Kautsky had positioned himself as the “Marxist Center”opposed equally to the revolutionary left and the revisionist right.

When it came to imperialism, Kautsky’s views shifted wildly over his life. Inhis most radical work The Road to Power (1908), he saw imperialism as anew stage of capitalism which was leading to war. In this work, he took apessimistic view of any bourgeois campaigns for disarmament. While Kautskysupported independence for the colonies, he did not back national liberationstruggles, believing that history would take care of the colonial question.

Kautsky’s position on imperialism changed abruptly after 1908. Now heconsidered imperialism to be a bad policy and not something intrinsic to thelatest stage of capitalism. He argued that most of the bourgeoisie did not havean economic interest in imperialism. Therefore, it was possible for socialiststo join with “pro-peace” sections of the bourgeoisie in common opposition to war.

All these debates on imperialismwere put to the test in 1914 with the start of World War I. The outbreak of warmeant that the German SPD had to decide what position its parliamentarydeputies would take toward voting on war credits: should they remain true totheir anti-imperialist resolutions or support the fatherland? Kautsky was not aparliamentary deputy but he was invited to give advice to the SPD delegation.He argued that the party could not abstain but should vote for funding providedthat the government committed itself to a purely “defensive” war.

Kautsky’s approach to WWI wasconsistent with his overall politics. Despite his opposition to imperialism,Kautsky could not envision revolutionary resistance to the German bourgeoisie.In fact, he concluded that the Second International had no role to play in warsince it was purely an instrument of peace.

Just as the war began, Kautsky revealedhis theory of “ultra-imperialism.” He admitted that imperialism was behind the warbut claimed that the bourgeoisie had a desire to maintain the current systemand avoid future wars. Thus, it was possible for capitalists to pursue a differentpolicy of organized capitalism or ultra-imperialism by renouncing militarismand jointly exploiting the world together. Kautsky’s prediction of a peacefulcapitalism related to his hopes for the postwar world. Ultra-imperialism wouldeffectively return the world to the status quo antebellum and would allow theparty to return to the “road to power” that had been “only” temporarily derailedin 1914.

As the war dragged on, Kautsky found himself in opposition to the SPD’s uncriticalsupport for the German government. By 1915, he joined with other centristforces who opposed the war and called for a “peace without annexations orindemnities.” Despite opposition to the war, Kautsky advocated no concretestrategy at all. The centrist position stood in sharp contrast to revolutionaryleftists such as Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who believed that “the mainenemy was at home.” Their approach of revolutionary defeatism meant sabotage,mutinies, strikes, and proletarian revolution in every belligerent nation toend the war.

In November 1918, the Kaiser was overthrown and a new republic was declared inGermany. However, it remained an open question of which class ruled Germany. Onthe one side was the SPD defending the bourgeoisie and on the other was the newlyformed Communist Party standing for the working class. In his typical fashion,Kautsky advanced a program to appease both sides. He championed the supremacyof parliament but also supported workers councils to keep watch on electedrepresentatives. While he advocated socialization of the economy, he emphasizedthat this did not mean socialism. In the end Kautsky’s solutions were rejectedby everyone across the political spectrum. There was no space for the “MarxistCenter” as Germany descended into semi-civil war.

By now, Kautsky had lost the mantle of revolutionary Marxism to Lenin andBolshevism. From the moment that the Russian workers stormed the Winter Palace,Kautsky was bitterly opposed to them. To him, Lenin and communism represented abetrayal of every principle of Marxist orthodoxy. He considered a socialistrevolution in backward Russia to be a historical abomination. Instead of sovietpower, Kautsky advocated the Constituent Assembly with its program of bourgeoisdemocracy, which he believed would have avoided the horrors of terror and civilwar. Over the final two decades of his life, Kautsky launched a ceaselessideological crusade against Bolshevism. For Kautsky, the Soviet Union andcommunism were the greatest dangers to the working class, surpassing by farwestern imperialism, Mussolini, and Hitler.

During the 1920s, Kautsky believedthat the era of revolutionary storms had passed and democracy was now firmlyimplanted in Germany. When the Depression happened in 1929 and the forces ofNational Socialism began to grow, he rejected any united front with theCommunists. He believed that the social democratic vote would stop Nazism cold.Besides that, Kautsky defended the SPD’s support for the “lesser evil” of Paulvon Hindenburg as buying precious time to preserve democracy. Somehow, heforgot that Hindenburg appointed Hitler to the position of chancellor. Evenafter Hitler came to power, Kautsky concluded that the SPD’s only course underWeimar had been a purely parliamentary one since a revolution would havedestroyed Germany. If nothing else, Kautsky never questioned that the SPD wouldeventually resume its parliamentary road to power. When Kautsky died in October1938 in exile, his faith in a democratic socialist future remained unbroken.

Eurocommunism and Neo-Reformism

In the following years, Kautsky wasignored by all camps of the revolutionary left. After 1945 as social democratsformally rejected socialism as even a long-term goal, they found little needfor Kautsky’s theoretical formulas. Yet his ideas continued to haunt thoseinterested in reformist socialism. In the 1970s, there was a revival ofKautsky’s political ideas from a seemingly unlikely source: the communistparties. By now, the western Communist Parties dropped their Marxism-Leninismand allegiance to the USSR, replacing it with democratic socialism. This theoryof Eurocommunism was not actually new, but simply the Communist Partiesaligning their theory with a decades-long practice of popular frontism.

The Eurocommunist strategy of a peaceful transition to socialism claimed to befollowing not Kautsky, but Antonio Gramsci’s “war of position.” Yet this was adistortion of Gramsci who never advocated any form of socialist gradualism. Thereason why Kautsky was not invoked by name is quite simple. For parties thatstill claimed to be nominally communist, Gramsci was considered a moreacceptable source of theoretical inspiration than Kautsky.

The most consistent follower ofKautsky in the latter half of the 20th century was the ChileanSocialist Salvador Allende. In 1970, Allende was elected President of Chile ona program of a peaceful and parliamentary road to socialism. Like Kautsky,Allende had an almost religious faith in the institutions of parliament andbourgeois democracy. Yet the army and the CIA had no such respect for theChilean Constitution, and they overthrew Allende in a bloody military coup onSeptember 11, 1973.

In the early 21st century, there has been the emergence of neo-reformistand broad left parties such as Die Linke in Germany and SYRIZA in Greece. Theseparties have promised a change from ordinary politics. Yet in power, they havesupported imperialism, austerity, and racist attacks on migrants, which haveleft their supporters dispirited and disoriented. At worst, their record has discreditedsocialism and opened the door to the fascist right to appear as an alternativeto the system. The balance sheet of these reformist parties is capitulation tothe power of capitalism, which has proven disastrous to the prospects ofsocialism.

The Neo-Kautskyians: Lars Lih

The contemporary neo-Kautskyianrevival owes a great deal to historiographical debates surrounding the RussianRevolution. For decades, anticommunist scholars dominated discussion onBolshevism with their claims that Lenin was an elitist who detested the workingclass and had a lust for totalitarian power. Serious challenges to thisanticommunist consensus began to be raised in the 1970s onward by figures suchas Neil Harding, Marcel Liebman, Hal Draper, Moira Donald, and others.

A major element of this new approach to Lenin involved looking at the influenceof Kautsky on his thought. The main person promoting the links between Leninand Kautsky is the Canadian academic Lars Lih. His central thesis is thatLenin’s basic ideas were largely set after his adoption of Kautsky’s Marxism inthe 1890s. Thereafter, Lenin’s theory and practice remained Kautskyian untilthe end of his life. In his magnum opus, Lenin Rediscovered (2005), Lihstates that Lenin did not advocate a “party of a new type” in his classic work Whatis to be Done? Rather, Lih argues that Lenin’s entire conception of theparty was drawn from Kautsky and the Erfurt Program. It is important to notethat Lih does perform a valuable service in clearing up Cold War andanticommunist stereotypes of Lenin as an elitist totalitarian. The Lenin thatemerges from Lih is a principled Marxist who fervently believes that theworking class can liberate itself.

It is not possible to discuss Lih’s views on Lenin in detail, but some pointsneed to be stressed. If all Lih was doing was highlighting the influence ofKautsky on Lenin, then there would be no objection. As Lih correctly notes,Lenin himself recognized his debt to Kautsky. Yet Lih does much more than that.He claims there were few, if any, breaks in Lenin’s political ideas.

In fact, Lih ignores thedevelopment in Lenin’s political thought, particularly on the vanguard party.Unlike Kautsky, Lenin’s politics was dominated by what Georg Lukács called the“actuality of revolution.” This did not mean a proletarian revolution could beachieved at any moment. Instead, this conception defined a whole epoch whereevery action was seen as links in a chain leading to the larger goal ofrevolution. This viewpoint had implications for how Lenin envisioned the roleof a communist party. For Lenin, a vanguard party was not a vehicle forcollecting votes nor did it passively await the revolution. Even though arevolution is only possible in certain circumstances, this does not mean thatcommunists cannot prepare for it now. It was necessary for communists to carryout revolutionary work in non-revolutionary times to prepare themselves and theworking class for when the situation is ripe. To put it succinctly, communistsmust “hasten and await.”

This meant there is a night and day contrast between Kautsky’s SPDfunctionaries and a Bolshevik vanguard. As evidenced by their practice in theRussian underground and the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the Bolshevikssuccessfully mobilized the working class against capitalism and the Tsar. TheSPD did not lead the German workers against the Kaiser but had them singingnationalist hymns as they were marched off to be slaughtered in the trenches ofFrance.

Theimplications of Lih’s approach to understanding Lenin and Bolshevism areenormous. Injudging Lenin as basically a Kautskyian, Lih stresses continuity over anytheoretical discontinuity. While Lenin emerged from within the SecondInternational and used its language and formulations, there was somethingradically new in what he developed from that raw material. By concluding thatLenin was just a follower of Kautsky, Lih erases anything distinctive aboutLeninism.

Lih’s effort to claim continuity between Lenin and Kautsky rests largely on a textualanalysis. Indeed, he is more than capable of unearthing documents and thencomparing them to find a common language. While this enables Lih to draw a lineof continuity from Lenin to Kautsky it is a purely surface-level approach. Onecould just as easily deploy Lih’s method and find that there is directcontinuity from Lenin to the present-day Communist Party of China due to theirshared Marxist language. Yet does anyone who looks deeper think that is true?

A different picture emerges ofLenin and Kautsky if we look at the material reality they operated in. Oncethis is done, we can see the different results of the two in practice. Leninismrepresented a new communist approach to revolution, while Kautskyism ended upas a cover for social democratic reformism. For Lih, it is sufficient to lookat someone’s ideas merely based on how they present them instead of looking attheir actual practice and distinctiveness. Lih’s formalism means he seespractice as almost a dirty activity and not worthy of attention. Yet thecentrality of revolutionary praxis to Lenin’s politics explains both hisdifferences with Kautsky and how he was able to lead in 1917.

Neo-Kautskyism: Eric Blanc

When it comes to the development of neo-Kautskyism, Lih performed a pivotalrole by discrediting Leninism with his promotion of Kautsky. Yet it was never Lih’sintention to connect these debates to contemporary politics since he is anindependent scholar who claims no political affiliation. Rather, he acts as ascholarly incubator for a neo-Kautskyism oriented toward political action foundin the work of Eric Blanc and others.

The immediate context for the emergence of neo-Kautskyism in the United Statescan be traced to the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign with its slogansof “democratic socialism.” The Sanders’ campaign also helped to revitalize thelargely moribund Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and spurred the growthof Jacobin Magazine. Between the two, a mass base now exists to discussdemocratic socialist ideas in the United States.

One of those who joined DSA wasEric Blanc, a Rutgers professor of labor studies. Originally a revolutionarysocialist, Blanc is now a vocal voice in DSA’s Bread and Roses Caucus. He is usinghis embrace of Kautsky to develop a political program for the left that seesthe Democratic Party as an instrument to advance socialist politics.

According to Blanc, Kautsky’s democratic socialism offers the best approach inadvanced capitalist societies such as the USA. He thinks that Leninist“insurrectionism” has always been a minority and elitist current among theworking class in democratic countries. As a concrete strategy, Blanc arguesthat socialists must focus on gaining an electoral majority based uponuniversal suffrage. He states that this strategy was a proven success in theFinnish Revolution of 1917-18.

There are a number of objections tobe made to Blanc’s claims. First, his characterization of “Leninistinsurrectionism” is a Cold War stereotype that views communists as elitist andindifferent to democracy. Based on the historical record, this is not true.During the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks built up mass support amongworkers, peasants, and soldiers. It was also the Bolsheviks – and not their“democratic” opponents – who carried out the will of the people in the mostpopular revolution in history.

Secondly, Blanc is correct thatLeninists believe the bourgeoisie can only be overthrown by force. However,this strategy was not elitist or undemocratic as he claims. As Lenin noted,communists must utilize every possibility at their disposal to awaken theworking class in its struggle against the bourgeoisie. This means communistshave been at the forefront of struggles for increased democratic rights, oppositionto imperialist wars, and unionization. By contrast, democratic socialists havebeen more frequently found on the other side of the barricades.

Third, Blanc’s claim that workingclass support for revolutionary alternatives to parliaments is marginal is alsoopen to question. To be clear, it is true in normal times that only a minorityof the population is open to radical politics. Yet there have beenrevolutionary situations such as Germany 1918-19, Spain 1936-37, and France1968 where the current social order was called into question. None of those instancesblossomed into a successful revolution for a variety of reasons. However, itwould be wrong to say that a revolutionary alternative remained marginal inthose cases.

Fourth, Blanc makes a fetish of elections and bourgeois democracy. He seems tooverestimate the “democratic” nature of bourgeois democracy, believing that itcan facilitate the transition to socialism. The assumption that the existenceof a capitalist “democracy” makes insurrection outmoded greatly overstates itsdemocratic credentials and toleration of socialist organizations.

This is borne out not only in Chilebut by his own example of Finland in 1917-18. In Finland, the Social Democrats(SDP) were an avowed Kautskyian party who won a parliamentary majority in 1917.Like their German counterpart, the Finns pursued a strategy of passivelywaiting for a revolution. Rather than prepare the workers for the seizure ofpower, the Finnish leadership acted as a roadblock. When the social democratsdid come to power, they were not ready to fight the counterrevolution. As aresult, the Finnish Reds suffered a bitter defeat after a few months. In theaftermath, many SDP leaders reflected on their experience and becamecommunists. One wonders if the Finnish bloodbath of 1918 is Blanc’s example of“success” then what would a failure look like?

To achieve his vision of ademocratic socialist majority, Blanc believes that it is necessary for theworking class to have its own political party. To achieve this, he hasdeveloped a strategy known as the “dirty break.” Simply put: Blanc says thatdemocratic socialists must operate on the Democratic Party “ballot line” forthe time being before splitting off to form their own party. Instead of working-classself-activity, Blanc argues that “insurgent” Democrats such as Sanders and AOC havethe power to stimulate mass movements. All the rhetoric aside, its practicalresults have represented nothing more than backing the Democratic Party. Insteadof a “dirty break” we just have a “dirty stay.”

There is nothing original to Blanc’s “dirty break” beyond its dubioushistorical examples and branding. What is interesting about the “dirty break”is the role played by Kautsky in its development. His embrace of Kautsky andelectoralism meant the disappearance of extra parliamentary and mass struggles.The dirty break’s electoralism possesses an elitist fixation on reformist and“insurgent” politicians with supposed abilities to conjure up mass movements.Crediting Sanders or AOC for causing mass struggles is to mix up cause andeffect. It is like crediting the rooster’s crowing for causing the sun to rise.They did not create any movements but capitalized on them by siphoning offtheir energies into the safe channels of bourgeois politics. The track recordof Sanders and AOC in office has not amounted to any reforms. Not only are theyreformists who can’t reform, but they are indistinguishable from“Establishment” Democrats in their open support for imperialism, Israel, andwar.

Lastly, the dirty break’s logic follows a Kautskyian approach of linearevolution. Whereas Kautsky saw the ever-accumulation of votes leading tosocialism, Blanc sees the “dirty break” eventually ending in the creation of aworkers’ party. Yet how that change comes about is left unclear and the momentof the neo-Kautskyian “dirty break” never arrives.

Why Kautsky is Wrong

So why is Kautsky wrong? If we care about achieving socialism then it matterswhy Kautsky was wrong. While a revolutionary in theory, Kautsky was never ableto provide revolutionary leadership in practice. His political outlook wasrooted in gradualism which led him to conclude that socialism was inevitableand revolutionary activity by the working class was unnecessary. When facedwith the historical tests of World War I and the German Revolution, he shrankfrom revolution. In practice, if not in theory, Kautskyism has meant forsakingthe struggle for socialism.

The faith of Kautsky and hislatter-day followers in the “democratic road to socialism” is premised on blindfaith in elections and parliament. They promise a safer and easier road tosocialism. However, this fetishistic respect for the mechanisms of bourgeoisdemocracy that Kautsky championed can be judged by its tragic results inGermany, Finland, and Chile. Those who supported a Kautskyian strategy havenever achieved socialism anywhere. Rather their road ends everywhere incatastrophe and defeat. That conclusion is more than enough to reject Kautsky intoto.

If we don’t want to be wrong like Kautsky, then we should look to the work ofRosa Luxemburg, V. I. Lenin, and Leon Trotsky. Together, their work forms athree-legged stool that offers the most all-embracing and astute critique ofKautsky’s methods and politics. Whether regarding party organization,philosophy, mass struggle, imperialism, strategy and tactics, the state, andproletarian revolution, their theoretical corpus offers a fundamental challengeto Kautskyism. Instead of resurrecting Kautskyism, if we are truly seriousabout fighting capitalism, then we should raise high the red banner ofrevolutionary communism once again.